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GIFT   OF 
A.    F.    Morrison 


QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY.    No.  XLVI. 


PROPERTY   IN    LAND 


AN  ESSAY  ON  THE  NEW  CRUSADE 


HENRY  WINN 


NEW  YORK  &  LONDON 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S    SONS 

cbc  luuthtvbockfi  |Jrtss 
1888 


QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY. 


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QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DA  Y.—No.  XL  VI. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND 


AN   ESSAY  ON  THE  NEW  CRUSADE 


BY 


HENRY  WINN 


,  ,  1     D    •  V  _,    )    ( 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

fcfct  Stairherbodui  fress 

1888 


REPLACING 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

HENRY  WINN 
1887 

GIFT  OF 


Press  of 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
New  York 


PREFACE. 


The  author  cannot  hope  in  so  brief  an  essay  to 
review  all  the  arguments  in  "  Progress  and  Poverty" 
and  similar  books.  He  has  dealt  only  with  the  few 
appearing  most  forcible.  He  deems  it  a  duty  to  meet 
the  new  faith,  sustained  as  it  is  by  men  of  undoubted 
probity,  with  other  weapons  than  ridicule.  If  our 
social  system  is  not  based  in  reason,  the  sooner  we 
know  it  the  better.  Any  justifiable  institution  stands 
on  a  rock,  and  we  need  not  dread  to  test  its 
foundation. 

Our  local  taxation  is  undoubtedly  unjust  and  op- 
pressive to  the  poor.  Discussion  may  shed  light  on 
its  faults.  But  the  author,  disbelieving  in  the  English 
system,  can  see  no  improvement  in  any  plan,  like  that 
of  Mr.  George,  looking  to  the  substantial  exemption 
of  chattels. 

SHELBURNE  FALLS,  Mass., 
June,  1887. 


M101713 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I. — THEORIES  OF  MR.  SPENCER  AND  MR.  GEORGE         .       i 

II. — MR.  SPENCER'S  ARGUMENT 4 

III. — LAWS  OF  RENT          .......     14 

IV. — DOES  NATURAL  SITE  RENT  EXIST  ?         .         .         .20 
V. — THE  EQUITABLE  DIVISION  .        .        .        .31 

VI. — SPECULATION     ...  ....     42 

VII. — EFFECT  OF  INVENTIONS  ON  RENT    .         .         .         -54 
VIII. — WILL  THE  SCHEME  CURE  POVERTY          .        .        -59 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW 
CRUSADE. 


I. — THEORIES  OF  MR.   SPENCER  AND  MR.   GEORGE. 

Mr.  Henry  George  and  Father  McGlynn  have 
argued  themselves  into  the  belief  that  a  general  con- 
fiscation of  land  values  will  lay  forever  the  ghost  of 
poverty.  Could  they  substantiate  their  tenets  one 
might  wish  them  success,  even  through  confiscation. 
Who  will  not  give  his  unearned  increment  of  land  if 
that  course  will,  as  they  say,  prove  "  a  remedy  for  the 
unjust  and  unequal  distribution  of  wealth  apparent 
in  modern  civilization,  and  for  all  the  evils  that  flow 
from  it";  "will  substitute  equality  for  inequality, 
plenty  for  want,  social  strength  for  social  weakness  "  ; 
if,  as  they  allege,  "  in  nothing  else  there  is  the  slight- 
est hope,"  but  from  this  would  come  the  "  Golden 
Age,  of  which  poets  have  sung  and  high-raised  seers 
have  told  in  metaphor." 

What  is  this  panacea  ?  Mr.  George  defines  it 
thus  : 

"  We  may  put  the  proposition  into  practical  form 
by  proposing — 


—  THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 


/f\  To  iityol£sth\$il  t'aokqtibn,  save  that  upon  land  values." 
—  Progress  'and  Poverty,  Book  viii.,  ch.  2. 

This  he  refers  to  later  as  "  taxes  placed  upon  land 
values,  irrespective  of  improvements  "  (Ibid.,  ch.  3). 
He  specifically  confines  his  theory  to  this  as  "the 
only  way  in  which  with  any  thing  like  a  high  develop- 
ment land  can  be  readily  retained  as  common  prop- 
erty." 

Mr.  George  does  not  seem  to  contemplate  the 
event  of  a  surplus  or  a  deficit.  We  need  not  consider 
a  surplus,  for  there  would  be  ways  enough  to  spend  it. 
But  if  the  rental  value  to  be  taken  should  fail  to 
meet  the  tax  required,  how  would  he  raise  the  deficit  ? 
Doubtless,  as  heretofore,  by  assessment  on  im- 
provements and  chattels  ;  for  should  he  exact  more 
from  the  land-owner  his  levy  would  be  a  tax  either 
upon  the  man  or  his  improvements,  to  which  Mr. 
George  objects.  His  whole  argument  goes  to  sup- 
port a  strenuous  claim  that  community  is  the  true 
owner  of  this  rental  value,  but  that  the  landlord  owns 
the  improvements.  We  may  then  restate  Mr.  George's 
plan  as  a  proposition  to  take  from  land-owners  the 
full  annual  rental  value  of  the  soil,  independent  of  the 
improvements,  and  apply  it  to  tax  purposes.  Father 
McGlynn,  as  we  suppose,  is  but  a  disciple  —  the  St. 
Paul  of  the  new  dispensation  —  preaching  the  same 
gospel. 

Their  idea  is  that  land  is  a  gift  of  nature,  like  the 
air  or  the  sea,  which  no  man  should  appropriate  to 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  3 

the  exclusion  of  others ;  wherefore  if  one  uses  a 
particular  part  he  should  pay  rent  for  it  to  mankind. 

This  fundamental  idea  has  been  supported  by  no 
less  authority  than  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert 
Spencer,  and  was  the  foundation  of  Mr.  Mill's  pro- 
posal to  confiscate  the  future  increase  in  the  value  of 
land  not  due  to  the  efforts  or  expense  of  its  owner. 
But  they  were  troubled  with  the  contemplation  of  a 
duty  which  Mr.  George  lightly  discards,  namely,  the 
compensation  of  owners  for  the  property  they  have  in 
the  land  when  the  decision  is  made  to  confiscate  its 
rentals. 

The  weight  of  these  names  has  seemed  to  de- 
ter reply  to  the  arguments  of  Mr.  George.  It  is 
time,  however,  to  meet  the  question  whether  private 
title  in  land  is  equitable.  Can  a  man  rightfully  hold 
a  parcel  of  the  globe  without  paying  globe  rent  to 
his  fellows  ?  We  propose  to  consider  this  inquiry, 
and  to  inquire,  further,  whether  Mr.  George's  remedy 
for  poverty  is  likely  to  be  effective  and  adequate. 

A  large  portion  of  Mr.  George's  book,  Progress 
and  Poverty  is  devoted  to  a  refutation  of  the  theories 
of  Malthus.  To  this  we  shall  not  allude.  We  bid 
him  God-speed  in  that  enterprise,  and  cannot  perceive 
in  it  any  bearing  on  the  questions  we  have  proposed 
to  discuss. 

Mr.  George  and  Mr.  Spencer  both  rest  their  argu- 
ment against  the  equity  of  private  ownership  in  land 
upon  the  same  foundation,  namely,  the  natural  right 


4  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

of  every  man  to  the  use  of  the  world,  "  a  right  which 
vests  in  every  human  being  when  he  enters  the 
world,"  and  which  society  cannot  rightfully  deny. 
We  must  meet  this  proposition  ;  for  if  men  have 
natural  rights  inconsistent  with  private  title  in  land, 
which  society  cannot  abrogate  or  limit,  there  the 
question  ends. 

The  claim  made  rests  solely  on  individual  natural 
right.  It  is  not  based  on  the  rights  of  man  as  a 
member  of  society,  but  the  heritage  sought  is  the 
share  in  the  globe  of  each  derived  from  his  Creator. 

II. — MR.  SPENCER'S  ARGUMENT. 

Mr.  Spencer  states  the  argument  most  concisely. 
After  premising  a  world  into  which  men  are  similarly 
born,  adapted  for  their  use,  he  claims  that  they  have 
equal  rights  to  that  use  ;  because,  if  each  has  freedom 
to  do  all  that  he  wills,  provided  he  infringes  not  the 
equal  freedom  of  any  other,  then  each  is  free  to  use 
the  earth  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  wants,  provided 
he  allows  all  others  the  same  liberty.  He  then  says  : 

"  Equity,  therefore,  does  not  permit  property  in  land  ;  for  if 
one  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  may  become  the  possession  of 
an  individual,  and  may  be  held  by  him  for  his  sole  use  and  bene- 
fit, then  other  portions  of  the  earth's  surface  may  be  so  held  ;  and 
eventually  the  whole  of  the  earth's  surface  may  be  so  held ;  and 
our  planet  may  thus  lapse  altogether  into  private  hands." — Social 
Statics,  p.  132. 

From  this  he  argues  that  many  of  the  race  may  be 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW   CRUSADE.  5 

here  only  by  sufferance,  if  private  title  is  right,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  equally  free. 

This  has  no  material  force.  It  only  goes  to  the 
point  that  if  the  world  should  be  crowded,  holdings 
should  be  limited,  not  to  the  point  that  there  should 
be  no  holdings  at  all.  No  one  will  dispute  the  right 
of  society  to  limit,  if  necessary,  excessive  holdings. 
The  action  of  economic  laws  has  rendered  it  thus  far 
unnecessary.  If  men  hold  land  in  excess  without 
utilizing  it,  taxes  and  interest  war  against  them,  and 
they  become  land-poor.  If  the  land  is  utilized,  all 
men  reap  the  benefit  by  the  increase  in  supply  and 
reduction  in  price  of  raw  material  and  food.  The 
argument  is  that  if  land-holding  be  carried  far  enough 
it  will  result  in  evil.  The  same  is  true  of  almost  any 
course  of  action.  There  is  no  more  sense  in  barring 
private  title  now  from  a  remote  fear  that  centuries 
hence  the  earth  may  come  under  it  and  part  of  the 
race  be  excluded,  than  a  janitor  would  show  in  ejecting 
a  man  from  his  seat  at  town  meeting  in  a  half-filled 
town-hall,  because  if  all  the  seats  should  "  eventually  " 
be  occupied  a  reseating  would  be  necessary.  If  we 
talk  with  profit  we  discuss  title  as  it  is,  subject  to  the 
necessary  limitations  imposed  by  society,  of  which 
the  right  of  eminent  domain  is  an  example,  and  the 
right  to  limit  holdings,  if  it  ever  becomes  essential  to 
the  well-being  of  society,  will  be  another. 

Mr.  Spencer  then  states  that  the  origin  of  land  ti- 
tles was  in  violence  and  fraud. 


0  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

The  general  mode  of  creating  title  has  been  by 
government  grant.  If  the  land  has  gone  by  favor,  it 
is  yet  the  fault  of  society,  for  society  is  responsible 
for  its  government.  And  after  centuries  of  holding, 
during  which  purchasers  have  continued  to  pay  their 
substance  for  land,  it  is  too  late  to  criticise  the  origi- 
nal distribution  to  parties  of  whom  the  present  own- 
ers never  heard.  The  present  proprietors,  besides, 
have  occupancy,  and  have  their  capital  blended  with 
their  land,  which,  independent  of  their  original  title, 
we  claim  gives  equitable  ownership  in  the  absence  of 
owners  with  a  better  claim  than  they  had  at  the  out- 
set. 

And  Mr.  Spencer's  objection  does  not  touch  the 
question,  for  we  discuss  the  general  right  to  make 
private  title,  not  the  validity  of  particular  titles  which 
may  have  been  fraudulent. 

Mr.  Spencer  claims  for  all  a  joint  tenancy  in  the 
globe ;  and  we  concede  that  all  have  an  interest, 
though  we  conceive  he  neither  states  accurately  the 
nature  of  that  interest  nor  draws  correct  conclusions 
from  the  fact.  He,  like  Mr.  George,  seeks  to  prove 
that  every  man  is  entitled  to  globe  rent  from  every 
occupant.  Of  course  it  would  be  fatal  to  his  claim  if 
men  should  subdivide  the  world,  each  taking  his  share 
by  allodial  title.  This  would  plainly  be  more  natural 
than  for  everybody  to  assess  and  collect  annual  globe 
rent  from  everybody  else,  the  extremely  awkward  and 
inconvenient  plan  which  he  and  Mr.  George  advocate. 


PROPERTY  IN   LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  f 

Feeling  this  he  finds  it  necessary  to  prove  that  such 
a  subdivision  is  impossible.      He  therefore  adds : 

"  '  Why,'  it  may  be  asked,  '  should  not  men  agree  to  a  fair  sub- 
division ?  If  all  are  co-heirs,  why  may  not  the  estate  be  equally 
apportioned,  and  each  be  afterwards  perfect  master  of  his  own 
share  ? '  To  this  question  it  may  in  the  first  place  be  replied 
that  such  a  division  is  vetoed  by  the  difficulty  of  fixing  the  values 
of  respective  tracts  of  land.  Variations  in  productiveness,  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  accessibility,  advantages  of  climate,  proximity 
to  the  centres  of  civilization — these  and  other  such  considerations 
remove  the  problem  out  of  the  sphere  of  mere  mensuration  into 
the  region  of  impossibility. 

"  But,  waiving  this,  let  us  inquire  who  are  to  be  the  allottees  ? 
•Shall  adult  males  and  all  who  have  reached  twenty-one  on  a 
specified  day,  be  the  fortunate  individuals  ?  If  so,  what  is  to  be 
done  with  those  who  come  of  age  on  the  morrow  ?  Is  it  proposed 
that  each  man,  woman,  and  child  shall  have  a  section  ?  If  so, 
what  becomes  of  all  who  are  to  be  born  next  year  ?  And  what 
will  be  the  fate  of  those  whose  fathers  sell  their  estates  and  squan- 
der the  proceeds  ?  These  portionless  ones  must  constitute  a 
class  already  described  as  having  no  right  to  a  resting-place  on 
earth — as  living  by  the  sufferance  of  their  fellow- men — as  being 
practically  serfs.  And  the  existence  of  such  a  class  is  wholly  at 
variance  with  the  law  of  equal  freedom. 

"  Until,  therefore,  we  can  produce  a  valid  commission  authoriz- 
ing us  to  make  this  distribution,  until  it  can  be  proved  that  God 
has  given  one  charter  of  privileges  to  one  generation  and  another 
to  the  next,  until  we  can  demonstrate  that  men  born  after  a  cer- 
tain date  are  doomed  to  slavery,  we  must  consider  that  no  such 
allotment  is  permissible." — Ibid.)  pp.  137,  138. 

Mr.  Spencer  suggests  that  all  land  should  "  be  held 
by  the  great  corporate  body — Society,"  and  that  all 


8  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

land  rent  should  be  paid  to  the  agents  of  Society- 
public  stewards. 

Whatever  force  this  plea  has,  arises  from  the  sup- 
position that  the  land  cannot  be  equitably  distributed, 
because  it  cannot  be  divided  and  kept  divided  through 
generations  in  equal  fractions.  Hence  Mr.  Spencer 
proposes  a  general  clearing-house. 

If  by  this  logic  Mr.  Spencer  has  demonstrated 
the  impropriety  of  private  allodial  title  on  account  of 
the  impossibility  of  making  an  equitable  division,  the 
same  logic,  if  the  premises  justify  its  use,  will  over- 
throw his  proposition  in  favor  of  a  system  of  globe 
rent.  We  wonder  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that,  if 
"variations  in  productiveness,  advantages  in  climate, 
etc.,"  "  veto  "  such  a  division  by  the  "  difficulty  of  fix- 
ing the  value  of  respective  tracts,"  and  "  remove  the 
problem  into  the  region  of  impossibility,"  they  would 
have  a  very  like  effect  upon  his  own  scheme  by  the 
like  difficulty  of  fixing  the  annual "  value  of  the  respec- 
tive tracts,"  namely,  the  rent.  He  refutes  his  own 
argument ;  for  the  annual  value  is  determined  by  the 
same  data  as  the  principal  value. 

Mr.  Spencer  and  Mr.  George  will  meet  another 
difficulty.  They  base  their  argument  for  the  collec- 
tion and  distribution  of  globe  rent  on  the  natural 
heirship  of  all  men  to  the  land.  Therefore  they  can- 
not collect  of  the  London  land-owner  unless  they  dis- 
tribute the  revenue  to  all  mankind.  They  cannot 
spend  it  for  British  taxes  nor  for  gifts  to  Englishmen. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  9 

The  Kafir  must  have  his  share.  For  if  all  are  co-heirs 
to  the  globe,  and  for  this  reason  society  cannot  per- 
mit one  man  to  hold  by  allodial  title,  how  shall  it  per- 
mit the  aggregation  of  men  called  England  to  hold  the 
part  of  the  British  island  having  that  name  and  exclude 
the  Kafir  ?  If  Mr.  George  is  correct,  we  outrage  the 
Chinese  by  excluding  them  from  American  land. 
These  theorists  cannot  divide  the  rent  to  its  owners — 
a  distribution  to  the  human  race  is  impossible. 

Suppose  they  could.  A  nice  question  would  enter. 
Land  in  London  rents  for  more  than  in  the  kraals  of 
Caffraria.  If  Mr.  Spencer  succeeds,  his  remittances 
to  the  Kafirs  will  support  them  all  luxuriously  in  their 
mode  of  life,  while  the  Londoner  must  live  long  to 
enjoy  a  farthing  from  Caffraria.  And  yet  it  is  proba- 
ble that  the  Lord  has  done  more  for  the  Kafir  land 
than  the  London  land.  The  rental  of  a  parcel  of 
London  land,  apart  from  its  improvements,  does  not 
arise  to  any  great  extent  from  the  gifts  of  nature  in 
it,  but  from  the  aggregation  and  labors  of  men. 
Will  these  gentlemen  insist  that  the  rental  a  piece  of 
land  will  bring,  independent  of  its  improvements,  is 
any  true  test  of  what  the  rest  of  the  human  race 
should  receive  in  globe  rent  from  its  occupant  ?  The 
co-heirship  on  which  they  rely  is  only  to  the  gifts  of 
nature.  The  Kafir  has  enjoyed  more  of  them  than 
the  Londoner,  and  owes  him  a  balance.  Will  they 
compel  London  to  support  Caffraria  because  the 
Kafirs  have  preferred  to  browse  and  bask  idly  in  the 


10  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

sunshine  without  the  toils  of  civilization  through 
which  London  has  a  rental  value  to  confiscate,  while 
Caffraria  has  not  ?  Will  they  claim  that  the  London 
man  who  has  lived  the  Kafir's  life  has  any  better  right 
to  London  globe  rent  than  he  ? 

Perhaps  we  owe  an  apology  to  Mr.  George,  for  he 
has  not  proposed  to  remit  to  the  Kafirs.  We  were 
examining  what  seemed  to  us  to  be  the  sequence  of 
his  argument.  If  he  likes  it  better,  let  us  admit  that 
he  pleads  the  joint  tenancy  of  all  men  in  the  globe  to 
justify  the  confiscation  of  rental  value  for  the  benefit 
of  a  fraction — not  a  ten-thousandth  part  perhaps — of 
the  joint  tenants  who,  as  he  says,  own  it ;  namely,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  little  coterie  of  tax-payers  of  the 
little  subdivision  of  a  subdivision  of  the  globe  where 
the  victimized  owner  lives.  If  there  is  a  shred  of 
equity  in  his  claim  derived  from  the  co-heirship  of 
men  to  natural  gifts,  we  fail  to  see  it. 

Assume  that  these  gentlemen  send  their  steward, 
Father  McGlynn,  to  collect  the  Boston  site  rent  of 
the  Equitable  Assurance  Company.  He  calls  on  the 
treasurer. 

Father  McGlynn. — "  Mr.  Treasurer,  by  gift  of  the 
Creator  all  men  are  joint  proprietors  of  the  globe, 
and  therefore  of  your  site.  I  am  come  for  the  rent." 

Treasurer. — "  Who  made  you  the  agent  of  all  man- 
kind?" 

Fr.  McG. — "  I  am  appointed,  like  other  assessors, 
by  the  Boston  City  Government." 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  II 

Treas. — "  That  may  authorize  you.  But  what  will 
you  do  with  the  rent  ?  " 

Fr.  McG. — "Pay  Boston  taxes  with  it." 

Treas.  —  "  Such  a  disposal  of  the  funds  would  be  a 
gross  breach  of  trust.  Not  one  four-thousandth  part 
of  that  rent  belongs  to  Boston.  I  will  not  pay  unless 
you  will  assure  me  that  no  nomad  scouring  the  plains 
of  Arabia  shall  be  cheated  of  his  share,  and  make  sure 
that  you  remit  to  the  poor  of  Patagonia.  But  how 
much  is  the  rent  ?  " 

Fr.  McG. — "  Your  site  is  assessed  at  $300,000;  a 
fair  rent  would  be  $13,500." 

Treas. — "  Great  Caesar,  no !  It  is  worth  that 
chiefly  because  of  the  other  buildings  you  see  here. 
What  value  they  bring  you  cannot  claim  as  globe 
rent  which  the  Lord  gave,  and  the  right  to  which  '  vests 
in  every  human  being  when  he  enters  the  world.' 
Globe  rent  is  due  for  natural  qualities  rather ;  and, 
since  free  sites  are  still  plenty,  there  is  no  natural 
site  value.  But  if  all  sites  were  occupied,  you 
could  at  most  claim  by  natural  right,  if  you  should 
choose  to  commute  your  rights  for  money,  the  rent 
of  one  having  the  least  value  derived  from  the  la- 
bors of  your  fellow-men  blended  with  it ;  namely, 
one  used  for  agricultural  purposes.  Your  natural 
right  to  rent  would  call  at  most  for  only  a  basket  of 
beans. 

"  But  I  forget — you  are  the  steward,  equalizing  by 
rent  the  enjoyment  of  natural  advantages.  The 


12  PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

Chagres  Indians  enjoy  a  climate  requiring  no  clothes 
or  houses,  and  a  soil  requiring  no  work  to  satisfy 
their  wants.  You  may  deduct  our  rent  from  the  bal- 
ance due  us  on  that  account." 

It  is  plain  that  Mr.  Spencer's  scheme  would  be  full 
of  difficulties,  and  it  is  that,  we  believe,  and  not  the 
distribution  scheme,  which  is  equitably  impossible  of 
execution. 

Mr.  Spencer  makes  one  more  point ;  an  inference 
from  the  right  to  take  land  for  public  purposes  by 
paying  for  it,  thus  : 

"  If  we  decide  that  the  claims  of  individual  ownership  must 
give  way,  then  we  imply  that  the  right  of  the  nation  at  large  to 
the  soil  is  supreme  ;  that  the  right  of  private  possession  only 
exists  by  general  consent ;  that  general  consent  being  withdrawn, 
it  ceases,  or,  in  other  words,  that  it  is  no  right  at  all." 

There  is  a  maxim  that  every  man  shall  so  hold  his 
property  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  equal  enjoyment 
by  others  of  theirs.  Land  is  immovable.  Our  neigh- 
bor, then,  has  no  right  to  hold  his  site  in  our  way, 
and  prevent  us  from  reaching  our  fellows,  but  we  have 
a  right  to  a  road  through  it  by  paying  for  it.  We 
do  not  by  this  claim  deny  his  right  to  his  land.  If 
we  did  we  should  not  pay  for  it.  Men  hold  their 
property,  and  even  their  lives,  subject  to  the  exigencies 
of  society,  but  this  does  not  prove  that  they  have  "  no 
right  at  all  "  to  them.  Mr.  Spencer  draws  the  rash 
conclusion  that  there  can  be  no  right  subject  to  a  con- 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  13 

dition  subsequent.  For  example,  the  state  may  blow 
up  A's  building  in  the  path  of  a  fire.  Ergo,  A5s  right 
to  his  building  exists  only  by  general  consent.  Ergo, 
"it  is  no  right  at  all."  The  state  may  take  B's 
liberty  by  impressing  him  into  the  army  for  national 
defence.  Ergo,  B  has  no  liberty  at  all.  The  argu- 
ment would  end  in  the  proposition  that  nothing  exists 
which  may  be  terminated.  It  is  not  profitable  to  pur- 
sue it. 

The  weakness  of  the  case  which  even  such  a  master 
of  logic  as  Mr.  Spencer  can  make  out  for  the  distribu- 
tion of  globe  rent,  shows  how  little  can  be  said  for  it, 
as  well  as  how  great  Homer  sometimes  nods. 

The  fundamental  error  which  leads  to  such  propo- 
sitions seems  to  be  the  conception  of  this  globe  as  a 
piece  of  real  estate  of  great  money  value,  to  which  all 
men  are  heirs  with  joint  interests,  and  in  which  each 
man  may  sell  or  rent  his  interest  for  much  money  if 
he  does  not  want  to  use  it  himself  ;  a  conception 
gained  from  familiarity  with  probate  proceedings 
rather  than  nature.  Men  look  at  the  great  accumula- 
tions of  artificial  site  value,  which  the  Lord  never  did 
give  them,  and  fancy  they  have  castles  in  Spain 
through  their  joint  tenancy  of  the  globe,  of  which 
they  are  somehow  defrauded  if  they  fail  to  receive 
the  rentals  without  labor  on  their  part. 

Nothing  of  the  sort  is  true. 

We  are  only  bound  to  refute  if  we  can  the  argu- 
ment made  for  the  equity  of  Mr.  George's  scheme. 


14  PPOPERTY  IN  LAND  —  THE   NEW  CRUSADE. 

But  we  have  admitted  that  all  men  have  an  interest 
in  the  globe,  and  we  may  fairly  be  asked  our  con- 
ception of  its  nature  and  consequences.  If  we  are 
wrong,  it  does  not  follow  that  Mr.  George  is  right. 

III. — LAWS  OF  RENT. 

Since  the  proposal  is  to  confiscate  rent,  the  ques- 
tion demands  a  conception  of  its  nature  and  laws, 
some  of  which,  though  well  known,  we  must  refer  to. 
The  popular  notion  of  rent  includes  in  it  payment  for 
the  use  of  structures  and  improvements,  which,  to- 
gether with  land,  constitute  real  estate.  The  politi- 
cal economist  uses  the  term  rent  in  a  more  limited 
sense  to  refer,  as  Ricardo  says,  to  "  that  portion  of 
the  earth's  produce  which  is  paid  to  the  landlord  for 
the  original  and  indestructible  powers  of  the  soil,"  it 
being,  of  course,  immaterial  whether  the  soil  is  used 
by  the  landlord  or  by  another  accounting  to  him  for 
his  share  of  the  produce  or  benefit,  or  commuting 
therefor  by  money,  which  commutation  may  be  termed 
money  rent.  Similar  laws  control  the  rent  of  land 
used  for  structures  and  land  used  for  production — the 
benefit  derived  being  simply  another  form  of  product: 
and  we  may  therefore,  if  we  note  the  discrimination 
between  the  two  classes  when  it  arises,  illustrate  by 
land  used  for  agricultural  production. 

This  net  value  of  the  use  of  land  independent 
of  its  improvements  we  may  call  "  site  rent,"  to  pre- 
vent confusion  with  the  popular  idea  of  rent.  And 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  15 

site  rent,  for  our  purpose,  may  be  subdivided  into 
"  natural  site  rent,"  arising  from  natural  qualities  of 
the  land,  and  "  artificial  site  rent"  arising  from  prox- 
imity of  markets,  extraordinary  aggregations  of  men, 
and  improvements,  public  and  otherwise,  not  appurte- 
nant to  the  site,  nor  paid  for  in  the  deductions  from 
the  product  which  determine  the  surplus  called  rent. 
This  is  the  chief  rental  of  cities. 

Besides  site  rent,  artificial  and  natural,  the  proper 
allowance  due  to  improvements  blended  with  the  site, 
for  the  increased  production,  may  be  called  "  improve- 
ment rent  "  ;  the  three  elements  constituting  rent  as 
the  term  is  commonly  spoken. 

In  general  terms  natural  site  rent  arises  from  the 
direct  gifts  of  the  Creator ;  artificial,  from  the  acts 
and  labors  of  men  affecting  the  value  of  the  site, 
though  not  creating  appurtenant  improvements  ;  and 
improvement  rent,  from  the  capitalized  labor  of,  or 
belonging  to,  the  owner,  blended  with  the  site  in  the 
form  of  improvements.  Mr.  George  and  Mr.  Spencer 
are  led  into  gross  error  by  failing  to  discriminate  be- 
tween natural  and  artificial  site  rent,  but  claiming  all 
site  rent  through  joint  tenancy  of  the  globe  when  the 
principal  part  of  site  rent  is  not  a  gift  of  the  Creator 
at  all. 

Site  rent  is  determined  by  the  value,  at  the  site,  of 
the  production  of  the  land  after  deducting  certain 
charges,  namely,  the  value  of  the  capital  consumed  in 
the  production,  interest  on  the  capital  used,  improve- 


1 6  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

ment  rent,  generally  counted  at  interest  rate,  wages 
for  the  labor  (including  superintendence),  and  a 
profit  on  the  business.  A  profit  to  compensate  for 
the  risks,  equivalent  to  that  allowed  in  the  average 
business  involving  a  like  percentage  of  risk,  is  due, 
since  labor  and  capital  applied  claim  a  certain  return, 
while  the  results  of  their  use  may  fail. 

These  deductions,  which  we  may  call  fixed  charges, 
determine  the  price  of  the  product  when  free  land  is 
available  ;  for  men  will  compete  to  create  property 
when  they  can  realize  a  return  of  their  capital  with 
interest  and  pay  for  their  labor  and  risk,  and  not  for 
less.  They  will  seek  lands  of  inferior  return  so  long 
as  they  can  realize  these  fixed  charges,  and  there  will 
be  a  margin  of  land  which  from  its  inferiority  or  re- 
moteness will  only  pay  the  charges,  and  which  will  of 
course  earn  no  site  rent.  They  will  cultivate  these 
rentless  sites  producing  a  product  bearing  a  price 
equal  to  these  charges  until  the  market  is  supplied, 
but  cultivate  better  lands,  paying  as  rent  all  the  sur- 
plus above  the  charges,  just  as  readily  as  they  will  re- 
sort to  the  inferior. 

Site  rent  does  not  affect  the  price  of  the  product. 
For  if  the  land-owner  should  attempt  to  increase  the 
rent  by  a  higher  price,  he  would  simply  drive  others 
to  increase  the  area  of  cultivation  by  making  it  profit- 
able to  till  more  rentless  land,  and  his  commodity 
would  be  neglected.  And  should  he  offer  his  product 
for  less,  the  ultimate  portion  of  the  supply  raised  from 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  \J 

the  inferior  or  remote  no-rent  land  would  still  com- 
mand the  price  established  by  the  fixed  charges,  and 
there  would  be  two  prices  for  the  same  product  in  the 
same  market,  which  is  impossible.  He  would  simply 
give  away  the  difference  between  his  and  the  current 
price.  If  Mr.  George  then  should  prohibit  the  charg- 
ing of  rent,  mankind  at  large  would  receive  no  bene- 
fit ;  for  the  equivalent  of  the  rent  would  then  only 
drop  into  the  pocket  of  the  lucky  occupant  of  the 
better  lands.  For  reasons  stated  site  rent  simply 
represents  the  differences  in  advantage  of  different 
sites,  and  is  not  a  general  measure  of  the  gifts  of  the 
Creator. 

Wages  are  fixed  by  the  demand  and  supply  of 
labor  in  all  employments  ;  and  since  all  employments 
are  open  the  workman  is  sure  of  his  compensation, 
irrespective  of  rent.  He  must  be  paid  before  rent 
accrues.  His  priority  is  also  assured  because  he  can 
earn  his  pay  from  the  no-rent  land,  while  the  landlord 
can  get  no  rent  without  labor.  When  Mr.  George 
therefore  implies,  as  he  seems  to,  that  rent  crowds 
down  wages,  he  talks  like  the  fox  who  charged  the 
lamb  down  stream  with  fouling  the  water  he  drank. 
The  land  raising  the  ultimate  portion  of  the  wheat 
must  bear  no  rent.  Workmen  tilling  that  must 
therefore  have  their  wages  fixed  irrespective  of  rent, 
and,  as  there  cannot  be  two  prices  for  labor  in  one 
market,  the  wages  of  those  tilling  the  rent  lands  must 
also  be  fixed  irrespective  of  rent.  The  productive- 


1 8  PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

ness  which  creates  the  surplus  called  rent  is  an  at- 
tribute of  the  land,  and  the  workman  is  not  entitled 
to  it  as  wages  by  reason  of  his  labor,  which  did  not 
create  it,  but,  if  at  all,  by  reason  of  some  title  in  the 
land.  Rent,  therefore,  does  not  reduce  wages. 

Mr.  George  indeed  explains  that  what  he  means 
when  he  says  that  wages  fall  as  rent  rises — that  is,  as 
poorer  land  comes  under  cultivation — is,  that  the 
share  of  the  laborer  in  the  produce,  not  the  quantity 
of  wealth  he  gets,  diminishes.  This  is  a  bare  truism, 
of  course,  if  he  groups  wages  and  interest  as  one  ;  for 
if  the  surplus  left  for  rent  is  greater,  the  prior  taking 
for  wages  and  charges  must  be  less.  But  he  should 
have  pointed  out  that  the  fact  that  raising  wheat  on 
poorer  land  becomes  profitable,  generally  implies  that 
a  new  demand  has  raised  its  price,  which  causes  a 
larger  area  to  be  cultivated  and  creates  a  new  demand 
for  workmen,  thereby  raising  their  wages  in  cash  and 
other  forms  of  wealth,  though  not  in  wheat.  In  view 
of  the  fact  that  site  rent  neither  enters  into  the  price 
of  the  product  nor  affects  wages,  the  argument  is 
weak  to  show  that  rent  causes  poverty,  though  of 
course  we  have  not  yet  opened  the  question  whether 
its  confiscation  and  distribution  would  relieve  it. 

We  may  cite  two  cases  to  illustrate  the  gross  injus- 
tice of  Mr.  Spencer's  proposal  to  equalize  natural 
gifts  in  the  land  by  dividing  site  rent.  Northfield, 
Smithfield,  and  Richfield  are  each  of  them  in  a  new 
district,  having  a  supply  of  wheat  land  ten  times  as 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  19 

great  as  is  needed  to  answer  their  wants,  producing 
uniformly  forty  bushels  of  wheat  per  acre  at  a  cost 
of  twenty  dollars'  charges,  but  situated  so  remote 
from  the  nearest  market,  Greenfield,  which  would 
take  their  wheat  at  one  dollar  per  bushel,  that  it  costs 
fifty  cents  per  bushel  to  transport  it  there.  Wheat 
will  bring  fifty  cents  per  bushel  in  the  three  towns, 
and  wheat  land  will  pay  no  rent,  but  the  whole 
value  must  be  paid  for  the  raising. 

Northfield  farmers,  more  enterprising  than  their 
neighbors,  contribute  heavily  and  build  a  railroad  to 
Greenfield,  which  will  carry  their  wheat  at  ten  cents 
per  bushel.  Wheat  rises  to  ninety  cents  in  North- 
field  and  site  rent  rises  to  sixteen  dollars  for  each 
acre,  because  its  forty  bushels,  bringing  thirty-six 
dollars,  cost  only  twenty  dollars  to  raise. 

Will  Mr.  Spencer  claim  that  every  child  in  Smith- 
field,  though  having  just  as  much  of  the  Lord's  gift 
of  land  as  his  Northfield  cousin,  is  born  into  the 
world  with  an  equitable  right  to  levy  his  share  of  this 
rent  collected  through  Northfield  enterprise — a  right 
assured  to  him  by  the  stupidity  or  indolence  of  his 
parents  in  neglecting  to  secure  transportation  from 
their  own  fields,  which  qualities  this  profitable  result 
will  probably  induce  them  to  perpetuate  ? 

Richfield  meets  another  fate.  The  Lord  casts  a 
blight  on  their  wheat  lands,  reducing  the  production 
of  nineteen  twentieths  of  them  to  twenty  bushels  per 
acre,  while  that  of  the  remaining  twentieth,  through 


20  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

some  preserving  quality,  is  reduced  only  to  thirty. 
Wheat  will  rise  to  one  dollar  per  bushel,  and  site  rent 
of  the  better  land  to  ten  dollars  per  acre.  The  blight 
has  created  money  value  in  the  land  which  had 
none  before. 

Will  Mr.  George  claim  that  the  lazy  Smithfield 
farmer,  enjoying  much  greater  favor  from  the  Creator 
in  the  natural  qualities  of  his  land  than  his  Richfield 
neighbor,  has  a  birthright  to  globe  rent  from  Rich- 
field because  the  blight  has  raised  a  land  rent  there  ? 

We  do  not  wish  the  case  to  stand  upon  exceptions 
like  these,  but  we  cite  them  to  illustrate  our  general 
claim  that  the  distribution  of  site  rent  is  no  equita- 
ble method  of  equalizing  natural  gifts. 

We  have  assumed  that  there  is  no  combination  of 
land-owners  to  raise  rents,  but  that  they  freely  com- 
pete, offering  land  enough  to  supply  the  demands  of 
society.  Mr.  George's  prime  error  is  always  to  argue 
as  if  there  were  a  close  combination,  without  competi- 
tion, among  land-owners,  but  none  among  tenants. 
Such  a  combination  of  landlords  is  of  all  varieties  the 
most  difficult  to  make,  owing  to  the  abundance  of 
land,  the  ease  with  which  men  can  resort  to  free  sites, 
and  the  slight  capital  required  to  improve  them. 

IV. — DOES  NATURAL  SITE  RENT  EXIST? 

We  have  heretofore  assumed  that  there  is  natural 
site  rent — money  value  arising  to  the  land-owner 
from  the  gifts  of  the  Creator  not  to  be  counted  as 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  21 

due  to  human  labor  or  action.  Does  it  exist,  and,  if 
so,  what  share  of  rent  is  it  and  what  share  is  artificial  ? 
If  not,  the  last  stone  of  Mr.  Spencer's  argument  is 
removed,  for  there  are  no  gifts  of  nature  in  the  rent 
he  proposes  to  divide. 

In  one  view  there  is  no  natural  site  rent ;  for  of 
the  common,  and  even  of  the  better  sites,  the  world 
has  an  ample  supply  free  for  the  taking.  By  free  we 
mean  subject  only  to  the  slight  economic  restrictions 
necessary  to  prevent  wanton  appropriation  without 
the  purpose  of  utilization.  Even  in  crowded  Massa- 
chusetts a  man  may  find  plenty  of  good  farms  at  the 
present  cost  of  the  necessary  improvements  already 
on  them  ;  some  even  for  the  cost  of  the  stone  walls. 
This,  as  even  Mr.  Spencer  admits,  is  free  land  ;  for 
it  must  be  expected  that  succeeding  generations  will 
apply,  and  be  paid  for,  such  permanent  improvements 
to  land  as  are  necessary  to  secure  and  enjoy  its  fruits 
in  their  times  ;  and  the  later  born  are  saved  their  cost 
when  they  take  them.  In  the  west  are  vast  domains 
sufficient  to  erect  into  empires,  salable  for  about  the 
cost  of  the  public  survey  and  record  ;  and  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  is  given  to  every  one  who  will  live  on  it. 
This  globe  has  only  begun  to  be  inhabited.  In  the 
tropics  are  millions  of  square  miles  of  the  best  land 
on  which  the  sun  shines,  much  of  which  is  so  densely 
covered  by  its  waste  fertility  that  a  man  can  only 
penetrate  a  few  rods  in  a  day,  cutting  his  way  with  a 
machete. 


22  PROPERTY  JJV  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

To  the  acclimated  the  country,  with  the  improve- 
ments of  civilization,  is  healthy.  The  inferiority  of 
the  inhabitants  is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
obliged  to  work.  The  four  necessities  of  the  temper- 
ate zone — food,  fuel,  clothes,  and  shelter — are  value- 
less or  unnecessary  by  reason  of  the  favor  shown  by 
nature.  Fuel  and  clothing,  except  the  fig-leaf,  are 
not  wanted.  Plantains,  cocoa-nuts,  all  manner  of 
tropical  fruit,  fish,  and  wild  fowl  are  procured  with 
no  labor  for  food,  and  a  thatch  supported  by  four 
sticks  suffices  for  shelter.  Two  or  three  days'  labor 
will  provide  for  a  family  a  year.  To  plant  a  few 
yams  is  the  limit  of  agriculture.  This  Arcadia  of  the 
socialist,  where  land  can  be  had  for  a  song  and  rent 
is  a  surprise,  ought,  under  the  theories  laid  down  by 
Mr.  George  in  Progress  and  Poverty,  to  pay  a  tre- 
mendous price  as  wages  ;  but  the  service  of  ten  men 
can  be  hired,  except  during  their  holidays,  which  con- 
sume perhaps  one  fourth  of  their  time,  for  the  pay  of 
one  New  Englander.  If  he  had  as  little  to  do  as 
they,"  he  too  would  become  a  barbarian ;  for  rich  or 
poor  must  work  or  deteriorate.  Ages  hence,  when 
population  invades  these  wilds  and  ten  men  seek  the 
product  of  each  cocoa  palm,  the  compulsion  to  exer- 
tion to  supply  their  wants  will  create  the  labor  habit 
which  the  climate  here  enforces,  and  result  in  civili- 
zation. 

In  the  view  referred  to,  when  sites  are  to  be  had 
for  nothing,  the  natural  advantages  of  any  site  have 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE   NEW  CRUSADE.  23 

no  money  value,  except  what  they  have  acquired 
through  the  acts  or  improvements  of  men  in  or 
affectine  the  site.  So  able  an  economist  as  Prof. 

o 

Perry  attributes  all  the  value  of  land  to  the  improve- 
ments and  cost  of  subduing  it,  and  declares  it  impos- 
sible for  the  owner  to  collect  for  any  thing  else, 
saying  :  "  Men  cannot  appropriate  God's  gifts  in  the 
soil  and  dole  them  out  to  other  men  for  pay." 

An  acre  in  the  primitive  prairie  produces  thirty 
bushels  of  wheat.  Being  one  of  a  million  free  acres, 
it  is  worth  nothing.  A  town  is  built  near  it  with 
highways,  stores,  repair  shops,  easy  of  access  to  the 
farmer  owning  it,  for  securing  supply  of  his  wants  and 
sale  of  his  product.  Straightway  rent  arises  for  that 
acre,  because  of  its  artificial  advantages  above  the 
outlying  acres  beyond  the  reach  of  profitable  culture. 
Even  the  churches,  libraries,  and  schoolhouses  in- 
crease the  rent  of  the  wheatfield,  for  the  settler  to 
enjoy  their  benefits  moves  near  the  town,  and  it  is  of 
great  advantage  to  have  his  acre  near,  that  he  may 
work  and  superintend  it.  Why  is  this  acre  now  worth 
one  hundred  dollars  ? 

The  view  already  stated  would  attribute  its  value 
wholly  to  artificial  advantages.  And  this  is  correct, 
if  the  inhabitants  are  fairly  entitled  to  the  incidental 
advantages  of  their  settlement  as  a  profit  for  their 
enterprise  and  investments.  And  it  is  a  question 
whether,  since  they  would  have  borne  the  incidental 
losses  of  the  enterprise  if  a  failure,  it  is  not  fair  to 


24  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW   CRUSADE. 

credit   their  work  with  the   incidental   gain  derived 
from  the  rise  of  land. 

But  there  is  another  view  to  be  taken,  which  would 
open  an  account  with  nature  and  credit  to  her  gifts 
all  the  value  created  above  the  cost  of  the  human* 
effort,  measured  by  its  average  compensation  in  other 
employments,  with  an  average  profit  allowance  for  the 
risks  involved  ; — which  would,  in  short,  allow  for  the 
human  effort  compensation  similar  to  improvement 
rent  at  the  basis  of  interest  and  profit  on  the  improve- 
ment cost,  counting  the  remainder  as  nature's  gift- 
natural  site  rent. 

To  illustrate  :  Brown  lives  in  a  new  country  and 
has  a  lot,  producing  twenty-five  bushels  of  wheat, 
which  is  worth  nothing  because  of  his  distance  from 
market.  No  rent  arises.  Finally  the  town  Spring- 
field grows  up  near  enough  to  afford  him  a  market,  to 
the  improvements  of  which  his  share  of  a  fair  tax  for 
the  benefit  done  this  lot  would  be  five  bushels  of 
wheat  delivered  at  the  town  annually.  His  wheat 
now  has  value,  and  he  finds  that  he  can  get  the  lot 
tilled  at  charges  of  ten  bushels  ;  but  he  has  no  high- 
way, and  it  costs  him  five  to  get  the  wheat  through 
the  woods  on  mule-back  to  Springfield.  Site  rent 
arises  of  ten  bushels  at  the  Springfield  price,  namely, 
the  product  less  the  charges,  including  carriage.  By 
the  first  theory  named  it  is  all  artificial  site  rent — a 
profit  accruing  from  the  building  of  Springfield  and 
approach  of  its  people.  By  the  second  the  portion 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  2$ 

due  on  account  of  Springfield  is  five  bushels,  Brown's 
share  of  the  cost  of  the  improvements  there,  and  the 
rest  is  due  to  nature  ;  that  is,  the  land  pays  five 
bushels'  natural  and  five  bushels'  artificial  site  rent 
each  year. 

Now  Brown  thinks  a  permanent  drain  may  pos- 
sibly increase  the  production  of  his  lot  to  forty-five 
bushels,  though  there  is  an  even  chance  that  it  will 
be  a  failure  in  its  effect  and  do  no  good.  He  spends 
the  value  of  one  hundred  bushels  in  making  his  drain, 
and  it  increases  permanently  his  production  to  forty, 
which  continues  to  cost  ten  for  fixed  charges,  and  now 
costs  eight  to  transport  to  Springfield.  Rent  is  now 
twenty-two  bushels  at  the  Springfield  price.  Brown's 
capital  in  the  drain  is  entitled  to  interest,  five  bushels. 
It  is  also  entitled  to  profit,  five  bushels  ;  for  when 
capital  is  worth  an  annual  five  bushels  per  one  hun- 
dred as  interest,  no  man  will  invest  it  at  even  risk 
of  its  entire  loss  at  less  than  ten.  These  leave 
for  natural  site  rent  a  gain  of  two  bushels,  and 
rent  stands  :  natural  site  rent,  seven  ;  artificial,  five  ; 
improvement  rent,  ten. 

But  now  a  hignway  is  built  to  Springfield,  and  the 
fair  tax  which  Brown  ought  to  pay  for  it  and  its 
maintenance  on  account  of  this  land  is  five  bushels 
per  year.  It  enables  him  to  carry  his  forty  bushels 
of  wheat  to  Springfield  for  a  cost  of  one  bushel  instead 
of  eight,  thereby  increasing  his  rent,  seven  bushels 
to  twenty-nine.  Here  then  is  an  increase  of  artificial 


20  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

site  rent,  of  five  bushels  to  ten  ;  of  natural  site  rent, 
of  two  more  bushels,  to  nine  ;  improvement  rent  re- 


maining at  ten. 


The  dispute  arises  over  this  natural  site-rent. 

Economist  A  would  not  allow  Brown  the  five  bush- 
els' profit  on  his  drain,  but  only  the  five  bushels  classed 
as  interest.  "  It  is  true,"  he  says,  "  that  Brown's  neigh- 
bor, Smith,  lost  all  he  invested  in  his  drain  ;  but 
nature  is  not  to  be  charged  for  man's  folly  by  allow- 
ances of  profit  in  cases  of  successful  improvements. 
Nature  allows  a  fixed  advance  to  each  improved  con- 
dition, and  if  the  farmer  does  not'  afford  the  condition 
by  his  improvement,  he  is  not  dealing  with  nature  at 
all,  and  his  lost  money  does  not  count  in  the  rent 
problem.  More  than  that :  nature  pays  for  the  prin- 
cipal of  Brown's  expenditure  by  giving  him  twelve 
bushels'  more  rent  for  five  bushels'  cost,  and  this  in 
fourteen  years  pays  Brown,  after  which  the  whole 
twelve  bushels  will  be  natural  site  rent "  ;  that  is,  if 
Brown  were  a  fourteen-years'  tenant  knowing  the 
result,  he  would  make  the  improvement  on  his  own 
account. 

"  But,"  objects  Economist  B,  "  nature  cannot  be 
said  to  have  given  what  she  conceals  from  man^ 
except  his  expense  of  finding  be  deducted.  If  the 
degree  of  success  to  be  expected  from  an  improve- 
ment were  patent,  a  man  in  his  account  with  nature 
could  charge  only  interest  on  his  outlay  for  it.  But 
it  is  not ;  and  when  money  is  spent  to  aid  nature,  and 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  2J 

an  account  is  kept  to  show  what  nature  gives,  she 
should  be  charged  with  what  is  spent  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  an  ordinary  investment,  which  would  not  be 
made,  except  on  the  return,  in  case  of  success,  which 
a  prudent  man  would  stipulate  for  in  view  of  the  risk. 
Nature  should  not  indeed  be  charged  for  follies,  but 
for  the  investments  a  man  of  ordinary  prudence 
would  make,  and  on  ordinary  charges. 

"  The  idea  that  nature  pays  for  the  improvement, 
and  that  afterwards  its  advantages  are  to  be  counted 
as  her  gift,  is  also  error.  For  her  production,  after 
the  annual  rent  account  is  settled,  becomes  personal 
property  of  the  owner.  It  cannot  become  nature's 
capital.  Nature  cannot  own  Brown's  drain.  If  so, 
she  can  own  Brown's  house  and  piano,  bought  per- 
haps by  the  profits  of  her  gifts.  The  drain  will  for- 
ever coact  with  nature  to  produce,  and  forever  be 
entitled  to  its  share.  If  we  desire  to  appraise  now 
improvements  made  years  ago,  reference  must  be  had 
to  their  effective  power  remaining.  The  present  fair 
cost  of  producing  the  effect,  when  it  can  be  done  with 
reasonable  cheapness,  is  its  value,  improvement  rent 
arising  on  that  cost  at  present  interest  rates  increased 
by  the  original  percentage  for  risk.  If,  as  often  hap- 
pens when  the  effect  of  expensive  improvements  is 
partly  spent,  the  remaining  effect  cannot  be  cheaply 
produced,  their  value  should  be  determined  by  the 
proportion  of  the  present  cost  of  making  such  im- 
provements which  their  fraction  of  remaining  effect 


28  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

bears  to  the  unit  of  original  effect.  This  system 
assumes  that  the  improvement  in  question  increases 
the  rent  sufficiently  for  appraisal  in  this  manner  ;  if 
not,  the  actual  increase  should  be  the  improvement 
rent,  and  the  estimated  value  of  the  improvement 
should  be  reduced  in  proportion. 

"  But  there  is  a  class  of  improvements  creating 
apparent  artificial  site  value  which  nature  does  com- 
pensate for,  because  they  are  settled  in  the  rent  ac- 
count. If,  instead  of  a  highway  from  Brown's  farm 
to  Springfield,  a  railroad  had  been  constructed  which 
had  carried  his  production  to  market  for  one  bushel 
of  it, — a  road  which  was  not  built  or  maintained  by 
private  or  public  contribution,  or  taxes,  but  out  of  the 
profits,  present  or  anticipated,  of  the  one  bushel  and 
other  tolls  like  it, — in  that  case  nature  would  seem  to 
compensate  for  the  carriage  by  the  one  bushel  pre- 
cisely as  she  compensates  for  the  tillage  by  ten  bush- 
els, and  the  five  bushels  artificial  site  rent  becomes 
natural  site  rent.  The  same  seems  to  be  true  of 
other  improvements  affecting,  but  not  appurtenant 
to,  the  site  ;  like  repair  shops  or  flouring  mills  which 
take  pay  for  their  creation  and  continuance  by  profit 
derived  from  the  natural  product.  But  the  increased 
rent  derived  from  improvements  created  and  main- 
tained by  public  taxes,  or  from  the  higher  price 
caused  by  an  increased  demand  arising  from  the 
proximity  of  other  persons,  not  living  near  on  account 
of  the  profit  they  may  derive  from  the  carnage,  pro- 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  29 

duction,  or  manipulation  of  the  original  product  from 
which  rent  is  derived,  is  not  natural,  but  artificial  site 
rent.  Thus  the  neighboring  watchmaker  or  school- 
master increases  the  farmer's  rent,  and  although  the 
farmer's  presence  may  be  a  factor  in  securing  theirs, 
yet  any  compensation  of  nature  coming  from  the  farm- 
er's product  is  too  remote  to  be  counted  as  a  cause. 
The  rent  of  cities  is  almost  entirely  artificial  ;  for, 
though  nature  affords  standing-room  for  men  and 
their  structures,  yet  it  is  not  from  any  superior  qual- 
ity of  the  standing-room  that  it  has  value,  and  stand- 
ing-room per  se  is  too  cheap  to  consider  in  the  vast 
amount  of  city  rents.  Cities,  of  course,  depend  some- 
what on  the  fertility  of  the  country  of  which  they  are 
markets  ;  but  men  are  attracted  together  with  a  thou- 
sand-fold more  force  by  their  social  tendencies  and 
inter-dependent  relations  and  avocations  other  than 
those  connected  with  natural  production,  than  by  the 
proximity  of  natural  products,  the  raising  of  which  is 
only  one  of  the  multiplex  forms  of  human  industry." 
Economist  C  on  the  other  hand  says  :  "  At  all 
times  there  is  free  flow  of  capital  into  land  improve- 
ments and  other  industrial  enterprises.  If  nature 
returned  more  for  the  investments  than  other  recip- 
ients, she  would  get  them  all.  Since  she  does  not 
attract  and  receive  them  all,  it  follows  that  the  aver- 
age of  profit  derived  from  them,  considering  the 
losses,  is  only  equal  to  that  derived  from  investments 
in  which  she  does  not  coact,  and  the  only  true  mode 


30  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

of  counting  the  value  of  an  improvement  is  to  credit 
it  the  full  increase.  If  the  average  is  only  even,  na- 
ture should  not  be  credited  with  the  surplus  of  a 
lucky  venture,  since  she  makes  up  no  losses.  Brown's 
drain  pays  twelve  bushels  for  five  and  he  fairly 
profits  seven.  Had  it  paid  only  one  he  would  have 
lost  four,  for  one  bushel  would  have  been  the  actual 
improvement  rent,  however  you  may  theorize  about 
it." 

If  economist  C  is  right,  why  does  it  not  follow  that, 
since,  in  fact,  Brown's  rent  began  with  nothing,  and 
only  rose  as  the  result  of  improvements  made  by  men's 
labor,  all  its  money  value  is  to  be  attributed  to  human 
industry ;  and  since  all  rental  values  have  passed 
through  similar  phases,  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
natural  site  rent,  and  no  right  to  money  rent  by  rea- 
son of  joint  tenancy  in  the  globe  ? 

We  incline  to  B's  view.  But,  even  under  that, 
little  is  left  of  money  value  to  the  credit  of  nature. 
For  if  the  sites  salable  for  the  fair  cost  of  improve- 
ments are  so  numerous  as  we  see  them,  how  many 
more  there  must  be  salable  for  the  cost  of  the  im- 
provements plus  the  artificial  site  value  ;  and  how  few 
having  left  a  margin  of  natural  site  value  which  men 
may  claim  as  heirs  of  nature.  And  we  strike  the  fur- 
ther difficulty  that,  even  if  we  have  succeeded  in 
evolving  the  equitable  rules  for  a  fair  division  be- 
tween man  and  nature,  yet  no  man  can  apply  them  ; 
for  he  cannot  tell  in  any  given  acre  bearing  rent  by 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  31 

what  amount  the  production  has  been  increased  by 
the  improvements — by  the  cost  of  subduing,  by  drain- 
age and  fertilization, — nor  how  much  of  the  price  is 
artificial,  not  paid  for  by  nature.  The  rules  have 
value  only  to  show  how  little  there  can  be  left  to 
quarrel  over  as  heirs  of  nature.  This  impossibility 
of  division  is  inherent,  and  will  forever  prevent  a  fair 
adjustment  by  rent  of  natural  claims.  Admitting 
that  we  have  been  unable  logically  to  disprove  the 
existence  of  natural  site  rent,  yet  we  have  found 
man's  labor  inseparably  blended  with  nature's  pro- 
ductive powers,  as  he  had  a  right  to  blend  them,  since 
that  is  indispensable  to  the  enjoyment  of  nature's 
gifts  ;  and  the  gross  injustice  of  confiscating  the 
whole  site  value  to  satisfy  a  claim  for  a  doubtful  frac- 
tion seems  apparent. 

V. — THE  EQUITABLE  DIVISION. 

We  have  argued  that  man's  natural  heritage  in  land 
las  little  or  no  money  value  on  account  of  its  abun- 
dance. We  shall  now  try  to  show  that,  even  if  it 
las,  it  is  already  fairly  divided. 

We  venture  the  opinion  that  the  Creator  never 
gave  an  individual  man  a  joint  interest  in  the  whole 
globe.  No  man  could  sow  or  reap  on  such  a  title. 
Mo  man  could  examine  his  premises  in  a  lifetime, 
much  less  use  them.  What  the  Lord  did  give  man 
was  the  right  to  a  place  in  the  world,  to  be  utilized 
him  if  he  desires  it. 


32  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

Next,  he  who  does  not  choose  to  utilize  his  land  is 
not  entitled  to  rent  for  it. 

It  may  be  assumed  that  if  the  Creator  gave  the 
world  to  the  race  they  would  be  found  in  it  under 
such  conditions  that  a  fair  division  of  the  gift  would 
be  simple,  not  requiring  the  complex  systems  that 
perplexed  Mr.  Spencer.  We  think  it  is,  and  that 
equity  neither  requires  its  continuous  subdivision  or  a 
general  clearing-house  for  rents.  The  land  almost 
divides  itself. 

What  is  the  natural  division  ? 

Let  us  try  analogy.  Water,  they  say,  is  a  common 
gift.  How  is  that  divided  ?  Yonder  is  the  town  pump 
which  never  yet  ran  dry.  A  wants  enough  to  drink ; 
B,  to  cook  ;  C,  for  washing ;  D,  ten  barrels  to  water 
his  garden.  Do  they  keep  a  pump  account?  No; 
for  the  water  in  the  well  has  no  more  price  than  a 
breath  of  west  wind.  No  man  cares  how  much  any 
other  takes,  and  no  man  is  defrauded.  Everybody 
knows  that  the  later  born  will  find  water  enough 
there.  It  is  only  after  the  water  is  separated  by 
labor  from  the  common  stock,  and  has  artificial  value 
in  it,  that  private  property  begins.  It  is  A's  water 
that  sparkles  on  his  table.  He  will  resent  an  attempt 
to  take  it  without  leave,  and  say  to  the  intruder : 
"  Move  on  to  the  supply  and  help  yourself  as  I 
did."  To  admit  the  intruder's  duty  to  do  this  is  to 
concede  the  right  of  private  property  in  the  water. 
Should  the  water  run  low  there  would  be  a  limit 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  33 

placed  on  the  taking,  but  each  would  still  own  what 
he  got. 

Suppose  that  A,  who  is  a  shoemaker,  should  meet 
Father  McGlynn,  who  advises  him  that  he  is  ag- 
grieved because  D,  who  owns  no  more  of  the  water, 
takes  ten  barrels  for  every  quart  he  draws.  A,  per- 
suaded, claims  rent  of  D  for  his  extra  use  of  the  town 
pump. 

But  D  replies:  ''You  do  me  gross  wrong  to  de- 
mand price  for  that  which  being  plenty  is  worth  noth- 
ing. I  can  profit  nothing  from  the  extra  water.  For, 
if  I  should  attempt  to  charge  a  profit,  you  shoemakers 
would  become  gardeners  and  compete  until  the  price 
of  my  product  would  decline  and  pay  me  no  more  for 
my  labor,  water  profit  and  all,  than  you  receive  for 
yours.  You  get  the  benefit  of  the  water  when  you 
buy  my  vegetables.  And,  if  I  did  profit,  your  trade 
would  be  depleted  by  persons  leaving  it  for  mine,  un- 
til you  could  charge  extra  for  your  shoes.  Thus  the 
value  of  the  water  divides  itself  to  you  as  much  as  if 
you  drew  it." 

"  Very  well,"  says  A,  "  though  you  profit  nothing, 
the  consumers  of  your  products  get  the  benefit  and 
should  pay.  When  we  put  a  steward  at  the  pump 
you  will  charge  them  what  you  pay  and  I  shall  get 
my  due." 

"If,"  replies  the  gardener,  "you  do  that,  water 
will  no  longer  be  a  free  gift  of  God,  but  will  bear  a 
price,  to  be  paid  from  those  who  need  it  to  those  who 


34  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

do  not.  You  claim  to  be  equalized  by  rent  for  a  dis- 
tributive share.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  distrib- 
utive share  when  everybody  can  freely  take  what  he 
wants.  If  there  is,  you  may  hide  in  a  cave  and  com- 
pel the  human  race  to  support  you  because  it  exceeds 
your  taking  of  the  sunlight." 

The  distribution  of  land  in  America  has  been  anal- 
ogous. Royal  grants  were  made,  but  the  grantees 
made  slight  gains  only,  and  unimproved  land  has  al- 
ways been  plenty  at  nominal  figures.  Each  who 
wanted  has  taken,  without  much  hindrance,  what  he 
needed,  and  there  is  still,  as  we  have  seen,  more  free 
land  than  can  be  used. 

Grant,  then,  that  when  Jones  has  pitched  his  tent 
and  subdued  and  sowed  his  field,  and  Smith  comes  to 
claim  a  site,  Jones  may  point  to  the  neighboring  hill, 
where  forty  sites  stand  waiting  for  Smith's  free  use, 
and  rightfully  say  :  "  Move  on  to  the  supply  and 
help  yourself,"  and  the  first  principle  of  private  title 
in  land  is  established,  whether  the  land  has  natural 
site  value  or  not.  And  it  is  apparent  that  no  man  has 
a  claim  as  globe  proprietor  for  natural  site  rent,  at 
least  beyond  the  expense  of  moving  along  to  the  free 
sites  when  he  actually  goes. 

In  the  community  are  many  who  need  no  land 
of  which  the  natural  site  rent  is  worth  count.  They 
refuse  to  take  their  share,  because  they  can  do  better 
than  to  use  it.  The  professional  man,  the  merchant, 
the  artisan  of  every  kind,  can  charge  as  much  for  their 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  35 

service  as  they  could  gain  by  working  the  free  site, 
else  they  would  work  it.  They  have  no  more  natural 
right  to  rent  for  rejected  land  than  for  rejected  sea  or 
sunlight. 

The  principle  on  which  allodial  title  seems  to  be 
founded  is,  that  when  a  man  has  taken  a  piece  of  land 
and  blended  his  labor  with  it,  there  being  a  sufficiency 
for  all,  he  has  thereby  gained  sufficient  title  in  it  to 
justify  him  in  requiring  the  new-comer  to  take  another 
lot.  Certainly  the  new-comer  has  no  such  superior 
title  as  to  take  his  lot  away  and  drive  him  to  the  free 
sites.  It  is  not  much  to  go  ;  one  must  go,  and  a  rule 
must  exist  as  to  which  must  go.  The  natural  rights 
of  the  new-comer  are  not  increased  a  hair's  breadth  by 
the  fact  that  others  have  settled  near  and  added  to  the 
value  of  the  site  he  seeks.  He  has  no  rights  as  globe 
proprietor  in  that  value.  He  has  no  right  to  rent,  for 
no  man  can  assess  his  natural  due,  should  it  be  con- 
ceded that  he  has  any.  But  he  has  none  ;  for  the 
Lord  did  not  give  him  the  earth,  but  only  a  part,  and 
his  part  is,  for  reasons  stated,  not  that  part.  A  little 
examination  would  show  that  chaos  would  result  if 
the  tenant  were  compelled  to  give  way  to  the  intruder 
—nay,  even  that  no  enjoyment  of  God's  gift  of  land 
could  be  had.  The  rule  of  private  title  in  land  which 
sends  the  new-comer  to  the  free  site  seems  to  be 
founded  in  nature. 

But  in  division  the  land  differs  from  the  water,  in 
that  the  taken  land  often  drives  the  new-comer  farther 


36  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

for  his  supply.  Inconvenience  would  arise  if  all  could 
appropriate  free  land  at  will.  It  would  have  been  bad 
if  A  and  B  had  wantonly  pumped  the  well  dry.  Gov- 
ernment, therefore,  by  tax  or  otherwise,  should  limit  the 
taking  of  free  land  sufficiently  to  make  it  unprofitable 
for  men  to  take  what  they  will  not  use  ;  enough  also 
to  maintain  a  residuum  of  free  sites.  Fertile  land  un- 
used increases  the  price  of  natural  products  by  driving 
unnecessarily  far  the  margin  of  production.  It  in- 
creases rent  also,  which  chiefly  arises  through  the  re- 
moteness of  competing  land  from  market.  The  aim 
should  be  to  cause  the  soil  to  be  put  to  its  best  use. 
This  done,  it  matters  little,  within  reasonable  limits, 
how  much  land  a  man  owns  while  free  sites  are  availa- 
ble. For  his  use  profits  others  who  own  no  land  ; 
and  he  will  pay  men  for  working  it  as  much  as  they 
can  earn  by  working  the  free  sites,  else  of  course  they 
will  not  hire  out  to  him. 

It  is  generally  speculation,  or  the  hope  of  a  rise, 
which  leads  men  to  buy  or  take  more  land  than  they 
can  properly  use.  The  checks  against  this  on  which 
society  has  relied  have  been  mainly  three.  First  : 
original  government  title  and  public  control  of  the 
sale  of  land,  fixing  such  price  for  it  as  shall  prevent 
wanton  taking  ;  and  limiting  free  taking  to  the  quar- 
ter of  a  square  mile  in  amount,  and  to  actual  residence 
for  a  fixed  period  on  the  land  selected.  Second  : 
taxes,  the  land  bearing  the  chief  part  of  all  taxation. 
Third :  interest,  which  constantly  operates  to  dis- 
courage the  holding  of  unused  land. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  37 

Government  limitation  is  not  in  contravention  of 
private  'title.  It  is  far  different  to  prevent  Brown 
from  taking  what  he  cannot  use,  or  to  reserve  the 
public  right  to  lay  a  way  through  his  land,  on  paying 
the  damage,  when  found  to  be  essential  to  the  proper 
utilization  of  other  sites,  from  what  it  would  be  to 
deny  him  the  right  to  hold  land  at  all. 

It  is,  of  course,  open  to  discussion  whether  these 
checks  are  sufficient.  They  are  plainly  so  in  a  land 
where  the  growth  of  population  is  not  extremely 
rapid.  The  free  land  of  older  communities  is  very 
difficult  to  carry  unused — for  the  holder  must  lose 
the  taxes  and  the  interest  he  might  secure  from  the 
capital  in  the  improvements  if  otherwise  invested. 
And  the  man  who  is  lt  land  poor"  is  known  even  on 
the  frontiers.  The  rapid  growth  of  new  States  in 
America  at  rates  which  cannot  continue,  has  given 
some  instances  of  wealth,  derived  by  holding  land, 
which  have  appealed  to  Mr.  George's  imagination. 
But  even  in  the  case  of  the  Astor  family,  the  one 
most  often  cited  by  his  followers  to  illustrate  the  in- 
justice of  private  title  in  land,  he  will  find  that  the 
capital  left  by  Mr.  John  Jacob  Astor  in  1848,  if 
loaned  at  interest  at  the  average  rate  which  could 
have  been  safely  secured,  or  if  simply  kept  invested 
in  government  bonds,  would  now  amount  to  half 
more  than  intelligent  observers  estimate  the  family 
fortune  to  be,  notwithstanding  its  investment  in  real 
estate,  and  gain  from  the  rapid  growth  of  the  great 


38  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

metropolis  and  all  the  accretions  added  by  the  skill 
and  labor  of  his  descendants. 

If  the  tenant  chooses  to  alienate  his  rights  in  his 
site  to  the  new-comer  for  value  received,  no  man  may 
complain,  for  no  man  is  injured.  But  we  do  not  in- 
tend to  discuss  alienation. 

We  have  dealt  thus  far  only  with  the  natural  right 
of  men  to  site  rent  as  joint  tenants  of  the  globe.  If, 
as  many  urge  with  strong  reason,  there  is  no  natural 
site  rent,  then  no  such  natural  right  exists.  If  there 
is  this  natural  site  rent,  but  the  condition  is  such, 
without  the  fault  of  the  tenants  of  land,  that  it  cannot 
be  assessed  or  divided  without  doing  much  greater  in- 
justice than  equity,  then  no  right  remains.  And  if, 
as  we  claim,  there  is  now  a  natural  division  of  the 
globe  substantially  satisfying  the  equities  as  the  Cre- 
ator intended,  so  far  as  natural  site  rent  is  concerned, 
much  more  is  this  natural  heritage  in  site  rent  a 
fiction. 

But  what  may  Mr.  Spencer  claim  of  the  artificial 
site  value  ?  Since  he  has  founded  his  claims  on  nat- 
ural right  we  are  not  called  on  to  go  far  into  this 
question.  Being  created  by  men  in  society  it  would 
seem  that  this  site  value,  if  not  belonging  to  the  site 
owner,  belongs  to  society  to  dispose  of  ;  and  may  be 
allowed  to  the  site  owner  for  reasons  seeming  suffi- 
cient to  society  in  view  of  the  common  good.  To 
explore  the  expediencies  would  require  a  volume. 
We  will  not  do  so  farther  than  casually  to  notice  a  few 


PROPERTY  IX  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  39 

evils  of  the  proposed  confiscation,  and  generally  to 
say  that  society,  long  since,  decided  that  allodial  ten- 
ure in  land  under  which  each  man  may  own,  free  of 
tribute,  his  home  and  business  site,  produces  a  freer, 
more  enterprising,  more  prosperous,  and  more  inde- 
pendent people.  Should  private  title  be  denied  man 
would  no  longer  carefully  improve  his  holding,  for  his 
pains  would  profit  neither  himself  nor  his  descend- 
ants. Sterile  places  would  not  be  redeemed,  fertile 
fields  would  become  waste,  and  Father  McGlynn,  in- 
stead of  replacing  the  occasional  garb  of  poverty, 
would  only  swathe  the  face  of  nature  in  its  rags. 

But  who  equitably  owns  this  artificial  site  value  ? 
One  would  say  that,  if  ten  men  should  buy  an  island 
off  Maine  and  build  on  it  a  village  consisting  of  stores, 
mills,  dwellings,  churches,  and  schoolhouses,  and  pave 
and  light  the  streets,  the  increased  value  of  a  vacant 
lot  they  might  own  in  the  village  was  a  fair  in- 
cidental profit  of  their  investment ;  that  they  had 
paid  for  it,  and  that  Mr.  Henry  George  was  almost 
as  egregiously  mistaken  in  describing  it  as  an  incre- 
ment of  value  got  without  labor,  as  in  claiming  that 
a  new-born  child  in  New  Zealand  is  joint  owner  of  it 
by  gift  of  Providence. 

We  cannot  exactly  define  who  produces  any 
special  site  value.  But  it  has  been  largely  paid  for 
by  the  owners  of  sites,  and  does  not  come  without 
labor.  Thus  everywhere  society  exacts  a  tax  from 
three  to  ten  times  as  heavy  from  the  owners  of  sites 


40  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

and  the  structures  thereon,  as  from  chattel  holders  ; 
and  it  frequently  exacts  special  assessments  that  go 
into  site  value.  Such  of  it  then  as  arises  from  streets, 
schools,  paving,  water,  and  other  public  improve- 
ments rendering  the  site  attractive,  has  been  roundly 
paid  for  by  the  site  owner,  while  the  non-property 
owners,  for  whom  Father  McGlynn  claims  it,  pay  no 
such  taxes. 

Still  more  of  the  site  value  arises  from  the  improve- 
ments which  land-owners  collectively  place  in  the 
sites  of  the  vicinity  ;  which  value  being  the  joint  re- 
sult of  the  expenditure  of  all,  the  share  of  the  incre- 
ment pertaining  to  the  site  of  one  may  be  fairly 
credited  to  him  as  one  of  the  body  creating  it. 

Without  further  detail  it  is  probable  that  site  value 
is  chiefly  created  and  paid  for  by  its  owners ;  and 
that  society,  which  always  exacts  from  them  an  extra 
heavy  part  of  the  cost  of  benefits  given  free  to  non- 
tax-payers, does  already  take  in  taxes  all  to  which 
equity  entitles  it.  The  confiscation  of  site  values 
would  plainly  be  gross  injustice. 

Railroads,  which  are  large  creators  of  site  value,  are 
often  paid  for  by  subscription  of  the  owners  of  bene- 
fited sites  who  lose  their  first  cost.  They  have  one 
function  we  should  notice.  They  are  also  great  de- 
stroyers of  site  rent.  For  they  bring  the  wheat  from 
rentless  sites  to  compete  with  the  product  of  highly 
cultivated  fields  artificially  fertile. 

The  effect  is  seen  in  a  country  like  England,  where 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  4! 

rents  are  abnormal  owing  to  the  great  aggregation  of 
people  manufacturing  for  the  world.  Wheat  has  been 
carried  from  Chicago  to  Liverpool  for  thirteen  cents. 
Assume  an  English  acre  having  that  market  and  pro- 
ducing forty  bushels  of  wheat  worth  one  dollar  and  a 
quarter  per  bushel,  raised  and  delivered  in  Liverpool 
at  a  cost  of  ten  dollars,  with  improvement  rent  of  ten 
dollars — the  site  rent  being  therefore  thirty.  The 
price  named  is  low  for  Liverpool.  If  now  wheat 
bears  its  price  of  this  season,  sixty-seven  cents,  in 
Chicago,  it  will  sell  for  eighty  cents  in  England.  The 
result  is  the  annihilation  of  eighteen  of  the  thirty 
dollars  site  rent.  The  charge  for  transportation  has 
been  reduced  to  half  its  cost  of  twenty  years  ago. 
What  minimum  it  will  reach  we  cannot  say.  But, 
even  at  present  rates,  there  is  no  acre  so  remote  from 
ree  land  as  to  carry  a  heavy  rent  on  account  of  ordi- 
nary natural  production. 

Another  and  an  unanswerable  reason  why  Father 
McGlynn  should  not  be  allowed  to  confiscate  site 
values  is  that  society,  which  has,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  only  color  of  title  outside  the  absolute  owner,  has 
for  ages  stood  by  and  approvingly  seen  men  invest 
their  earnings  in  land  sites  with  the  full  expectation 
that  their  investment  should  be  safe  from  spoliation  ;— 
nay  has  invited  such  investment  under  the  most 
solemn  guaranties  of  protection.  These  investments 
were  no  more  profitable  than  if  put  in  chattels,  else 
capital  would  not  at  the  same  time  have  flowed  into 


i 


42  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

chattels.  If  there  is  any  such  thing  as  faith  in  society 
land-owners  will  not  be  despoiled  without  compen- 
sation. 

We  may  presume  that  if  the  Creator  had  intended 
us  to  enjoy  the  gifts  of  nature  in  one  spot,  instead  of 
dividing  over  the  whole  globe  with  only  such  exchange 
centres  as  are  necessary,  He  would  have  placed 
those  gifts  at  some  special  point.  We  cannot  believe 
the  tendency  of  men  to  huddle  into  great  cities,  which 
are  often  the  centres  of  all  manner  of  vice,  attracted 
by  the  excitement  of  being  in  a  crowd  or  dazzled  by 
the  splendor  of  the  fortunate  few — to  prefer  refuse  in 
a  garret  rather  than  the  pure  air,  the  sunny  fields, 
the  sparkling  waters,  the  perpetual  and  kaleidoscopic 
beauties  of  nature  in  the  midst  of  abundance, — to  be 
in  accord  with  His  beneficent  design.  Rent  seems  to 
arise  under  the  dispersive  law  which  countervails  this 
tendency  and  secures  the  improvement  and  occupa- 
tion of  the  world  at  large. 

VI. — SPECULATION. 

Mr.  George  describes  in  his  glowing  style  the  evils 
of  land  speculation.  If  accurate  he  would  thus  im- 
peach the  sufficiency  of  the  checks  we  have  named 
against  misappropriation— namely,  in  this  case  taxes 
and  interest ; — and  he  would  substitute  the  confisca- 
tion of  all  land. 

We  have  admitted  that  disuse  of  land  near  a  market 
increases  rents  above  their  natural  point.  He  claims 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE   NEW   CRUSADE.  43 

that  speculation  causes  disuse,  and  from  his  claim  de- 
duces, as  a  result  of  land  speculation,  a  reduction  of 
the  area  of  production  forcing  down  wages  and  inter- 
est, (which  are  measured  by  the  product  of  rentless 
land,)  by  compelling  their  application  to  poorer  soils 
—commercial  crises — idle  factories- — industrial  paral- 
ysis. He  makes  this  point  one  of  the  corner-stones 
of  his  fabric,  and  we  should  fail  in  due  respect  to  him 
if  we  did  not  consider  it. 

We  deny  that  speculation  in  land,  except  in  rare 
cases  not  affecting  the  general  result,  causes  its  disuse. 
He  simply  asserts,  citing  two  examples  to  which  we 
will  refer.  He  should  have  proven  ;  for,  if  specula- 
tion does  not  cause  disuse,  the  keystone  drops  and 
his  structure  falls.  For  if  not,  then  the  area  of  pro- 
duction is  not  reduced,  and  labor  and  capital  are  not 
driven  to  poorer  soils,  nor  production  suspended. 
Assuming  that  land  which  produces  eighteen,  (say 
bushels  of  wheat,)  is  the  margin  of  cultivation,  by 
which  he  means  of  course  land  paying  no  rent,  labor 
and  capital  taking  for  pay  the  whole  product,  he  gives 
the  rationale  thus  : 

"  But  if  the  confident  expectation  of  a  further  increase  of  rents 
leads  the  land-owners  to  demand  three  rent  for  twenty  land,  two 
for  nineteen,  and  one  for  eighteen  land,  and  to  withhold  their 
land  from  use  until  these  terms  are  complied  with,  the  area  of 
productiveness  may  be  so  reduced  that  the  margin  of  cultivation 
must  fall  to  seventeen  or  even  lower,"  etc. — Progress  and  Poverty. 
Book  TIL,  ch.  4. 

But  why  will  the  speculator  "withhold  the  land  from 


44  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

use "  because  he  cannot  get  all  he  wants  as  rent  ? 
Suppose  the  land  he  buys  produces  thirty-five  and  he 
is  entitled  to  seventeen  as  rent.  Why  is  he  entitled  to 
seventeen  ?  Simply  because  there  are  a  definite  number 
of  people  demanding  a  definite  amount  of  wheat  which 
a  given  area  of  cultivation  will  supply,  and  the  con- 
tention of  demand  and  supply  have  fixed  such  a  price 
of  wheat  that  labor  and  capital  at  their  current  rates 
will  till  his  acre  and  be  satisfied  with  eighteen  bush- 
els, leaving  him  seventeen.  All  the  area  producing 
over  eighteen  will  be  tilled,  because  the  man  whose 
land  produces  nineteen  will  bid  a  little  higher  for 
capital  and  labor,  say  eighteen  and  one  quarter,  and 
draw  them  away  from  eighteen  land,  rather  than  let 
his  land  stand  idle  and  lose  his  whole  rent.  It  may 
happen  then  that  not  one  tenth  of  the  eighteen  land 
is  cultivated,  and  if  the  speculator  in  rent-paying  land 
should  fence  the  world  out  from  his,  he  would  affect 
nothing  but  to  lose  his  own  rent,  since  he  could  not 
extend  the  margin  beyond  the  eighteen  land.  If 
such  a  man  expects  any  thing  from  throwing  away  his 
own  rent,  he  must  know  what  no  man  can — namely,  that 
the  margin  of  eighteen  land  is  all  occupied.  And 
suppose  he  does  know  that  the  supply  of  eighteen 
land  is  just  about  to  fail,  and  succeeds  in  driving 
workmen  to  work  the  seventeen  land.  Who  is  going 
to  consume  the  surplus  they  produce  and  prevent  the 
glut  which  will  cut  down  his  own  rent  again  the 
moment  he  gets  tired  of  losing  every  thing  and  planl 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  45 

his  acre?  We  do  not  propose  here  to  discuss  the 
effect  of  combination  for  that  is  met  by  counter-com- 
bination, and  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  than 
cornering  the  general  use  of  land.  It  is  the  ratio  of 
the  real  demand  to  the  supply  which  determines  rent, 
and  he  who  asks  an  increase  when  the  actual  demand 
justifies  him  is  entitled  to  it ;  but  he  who  seeks  to  fill 
his  pockets  by  asking  more  than  his  land  is  worth, 
and  throwing  away  his  whole  income  if  he  cannot  get 
it,  will  get  weary  in  the  race  for  fortune.  Suppose 
the  speculator  buys  a  city  house  when  money  is  at  five 
per  cent.,  worth,  at  present  rates  of  its  income,  $8,000  ; 
paying  $400  net  rent,  and  $100  for  taxes,  and  $100 
for  expenses,  or  $600  gross  rent.  He  has  the  fore- 
sight to  see  that  in  five  years  the  city  will  grow,  and 
it  will  become  worth  $10,000,  and  pays  $9,000  for  it. 
Whence  does  he  expect  his  profit  ?  Is  it  from  getting 
more  from  the  use  of  his  house  than  it  is  worth,  or  in 
the  $2,000  rise?  Will  he  insist  on  getting  it  twice, 
first  by  asking  $50  or  $100  more  rent  than  the  house 
is  worth  during  the  period  when  it  is  worth  $400  net 
rent,  and  again  realizing  the  $2,000  advance,  or  its 
annual  income,  when  it  comes  fairly,  and  throw  away 
his  whole  $600  a  year  in  rent,  interest,  and  taxes,  by 
shutting  up  his  house  because  he  cannot  cheat  some 
tenant  ?  This  is  not  the  class  of  speculator  we  have 
seen.  Those  we  know  who  buy  for  a  rise,  and  not 
for  use,  are  more  apt  to  concede  something  from  true 
rent  to  get  their  estate  utilized  while  the  rise  is  accru- 


46  PROPERTY  Ii\r  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

ing,  and  promote  the  growth  of  the  town  to  help  their 
final  purpose  of  increasing  values. 

Mr.  George  again  inverts  the  true  positions  of  rent 
and  wages  in  this  connection  by  making  wages  the 
surplus  after  rent  satisfies  its  pleasure.  He  seems  to 
be  striving  to  ameliorate  the  race,  but  nothing  dis- 
figures his  work  so  much  as  an  apparent  appeal  to 
sympathy  by  ignoring  the  defences  which  the  work- 
man has  against  the  landlord — such,  for  example,  as 
arise  through  employments  slightly  affected  by  rent, 
combination,  recourse  to  free  land,  the  laws,  or  labor 
on  his  own  account, — and  representing  him  as  helpless 
until  he  reaches  the  depth  of  misery  where  humanity 
refuses  to  reproduce ;  the  point  which  to  increase  our 
horror  we  should  have  expected  him  to  name  the 
margin  of  death.  Can  any  one  be  deceived  by  this, 
say  in  New  York,  where  an  hour's  labor  will  pay  the 
freight  on  wheat  enough  from  sites  free  of  all  rent  to 
last  his  family  for  months?  Or  in  Massachusetts, 
where,  according  to  Mr.  George,  the  growth  from 
sparsity  to  density  of  population,  aided  by  the  nefarious 
wages-reducing  improvements  of  modern  agriculture, 
should  have  depressed  the  workman  from  opulence  to 
poverty,  but  where,  in  fact,  in  forty  years  the  work 
hours  of  the  farm  laborer  have  been  reduced  from 
thirteen  to  ten,  and  his  wages  have  nearly  doubled, 
while  the  price  of  the  corn,  wheat,  coal,  cloth,  an< 
other  articles  he  consumes  must  have  fallen  from  tei 
to  twenty  per  cent,  and  the  savings-bank  deposits, 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  47 

not  all,  but  largely  his,  have  risen  from  insignificant 
figures  to  more  than  two  hundred  millions  ?  If  land- 
lords have  had  the  power  to  pocket  the  cost  of  this 
improved  condition,  but  have  voluntarily  relinquished 
it,  why  not  for  once  in  some  hiatus  of  the  rhetoric  sing 
a  paean  to  their  praise  ? 

Whoever  observes  industrial  depressions  will  note 
that  the  last  price  to  fall  is  that  of  labor. 

Of  the  two  cases  cited  by  Mr.  George  where  specu- 
lation in  land  cuts  off  its  use,  one  is  a  case  in  Marin 
County,  California,  where  a  belt  of  California  redwood 
was  held  by  its  owners  for  a  higher  price,  redwood 
being  daily  hauled  past  it  from  remote  places.  We  do 
not  see  that  this  land  has  gone  from  use,  since  it  is 
occupied  for  the  storage  and  preservation  of  redwood. 
This  instance  savors  more  of  speculation  in  uncut 
redwood  than  in  land.  And  if  there  is  to  be  a  scar- 
city in  redwood,  as  the  owners  expect,  whether  it  will 
not,  on  the  whole,  profit  the  world  to  have  a  supply 
saved,  quczre. 

The  other  example  deserves  closer  examination. 
He  points  to  lots  in  cities  vacant,  or  covered  with 
miserable  shanties,  in  the  midst  of  costly  buildings. 
Here  is  indeed  land  held  from  use.  It  may  pay  us  to 
compare  the  present  and  the  Georgian  systems  in  the 
disposal  of  this  land. 

In  the  issue  between  Father  McGlynn  and  Mr. 
Atkinson,  whether  the  landlord  can,  by  increasing  his 
rent  charge,  exact  from  his  tenant  the  site  rent  pro- 


48  PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

posed  to  be  taken  from  him  in  taxes  by  the  state,  each 
seems  to  be  partly  right.  The  present  rent,  which 
tenants  pay  on  account  of  value  in  the  site,  they  will 
continue  to  pay  :  but  it  will  go  to  the  state  instead  of 
the  landlord ;  the  land  being,  by  the  change,  really 
owned  by  the  state,  and  the  landlord  becoming  mere- 
ly an  agent  to  collect  and  guarantee  site  rent.  He 
cannot  charge  more  to  the  tenant  to  reimburse  him- 
self for  the  site  rent  he  formerly  owned  now  confis- 
cated. For  the  rent  of  the  site,  under  Ricardo's 
theory,  simply  represents  the  value  to  the  tenant  of 
the  site  above  sites  paying  no  rent.  The  change  will 
have  no  tendency  to  increase  this  value  to  the  tenant, 
nor  will  the  cost  of  sites  having  no  present  rental 
value  be  increased,  since  Father  McGlynn  proposes  no 
extra  impost  upon  them.  The  site  rent  of  no  tenant 
therefore  can  be  increased  for  the  landlord's  benefit  by 
the  proposed  change,  or  as  Mr.  Ricardo  states  it : 

u  A  land  tax  levied  in  proportion  to  the  rent  of  land  and  vary- 
ing with  every  variation  of  rent  is  in  effect  a  tax  on  rent.  And  as 
such  a  tax  will  not  apply  to  that  land  which  yields  no  rent,  nor  to 
the  produce  of  that  capital  which  is  employed  on  the  land  with  a 
view  to  profit  merely,  and  which  never  pays  rent,  it  will  not  in  any 
way  affect  the  price  of  raw  produce,  but  will  fall  wholly  on  the 
landlords." — Ric.,  p.  107. 

But  all  future  increments  of  site  rent  exacted  by  the 
state  on  account  of  the  rising  value  of  sites  will  come 
from  the  tenant's  pocket.  For  a  true  increment  of 
land  value  represents  an  actual  increase  in  the  value 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  49 

of  the  site  for  use,  business,  or  production,  above  sites 
of  no  rental  value  :  and  this,  under  Ricardo's  law, 
landlords  can  exact  from  their  tenants.  A  new  im- 
post paid  by  the  landlord  on  account  of  the  site,  would 
reduce  the  profit  on  his  capital  invested  in  the  struct- 
ures on  the  site  below  that  accruing  to  capital  gener- 
ally, and  no  capital  would  flow  into  like  structures  till 
the  tenant  would  pay  the  increased  charges. 

The  law  controlling  the  taxation  of  land  irrespec- 
tive of  improvements  is,  then,  that  any  increase  of  tax 
comes  out  of  the  landlord  until  his  land  becomes 
worth  nothing,  after  which,  further  exactions,  not  ex- 
ceeding the  increase  in  rental  value,  are  borne  by  the 
tenants. 

Mr.  George  proposes  to  take  all  site  rent  for  taxes. 
Therefore,  since  every  vacant  city  lot  has  a  large  arti- 
ficial site  rent  value,  to  hold  it  vacant  would  be  to  pay 
a  heavy  tribute  to  the  state  for  nothing.  We  say  for 
nothing,  since,  if  the  site  should  ever  earn  any  thing 
by  rentals  in  the  future,  Mr.  George  proposes  to  take 
that  too.  He  cannot  even  give  along  lease  ;  for  then 
the  holder  and  not  the  state  would  pocket  the  incre- 
ment of  rent  created  by  growth.  Every  vacant  lot 
therefore,  not  just  to  be  built  upon,  would  instantly  be 
forfeited  to  the  state.  No  doubt  this  would  cure  specu- 
lation. As  Father  McGlynn  in  Boston  tersely  stated 
the  case  of  vacant  land  :  "  A  man  if  he  nominally 
owned  it  must  pay  the  full  rental  value  for  it,  and  get 
no  rent  whatever  from  it,  and  even  if  he  were  a  fool  he 


50  PROPERTY  IN  LAND— THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

would  see  there  was  no  fun  in  that,  and  he  would 
give  it  up  and  let  some  one  else  take  it." 

Correct  there.  Father  McGlynn  continues  :  "  You 
see  what  would  be  the  result.  There  would  be  a  con- 
tinual increase  in  the  building  trade ;  houses  would 
spring  up  all  over  the  city." 

That  is  what  we  do  not  see.  A  vacant  site  like  that 
of  the  Equitable,  worth  $300,000,  pays  taxes  $4,500, 
and  costs  its  owner  $13, 500  interest  to  carry,  all  which 
is  lost  if  the  site  is  unproductive.  He  is  under  a  pen- 
alty of  $  1 8,000  per  annum  if  he  does  not  build.  Under 
the  McGlynn  plan  the  land  would  be  state  land  ;  and 
nobody,  except  the  state  (which  would  not  go  into 
building),  would  lose  if  the  site  remained  idle.  The 
speculator  now  builds  the  moment  he  can  realize 
interest  on  the  cost  of  his  building.  The  builder 
under  the  McGlynn  system  will  not  build  until  he  is 
sure  he  can  realize  interest  on  the  cost  of  the  building 
and  $13,500  more  wherewith  to  pay  the  state  rent.  In 
short,  speculation,  instead  of  holding  land  vacant  with- 
out strong  cause,  hastens  its  occupation  and  cheapens 
rent  by  an  over-supply  of  buildings  constructed  before 
their  time,  as  the  surplus  of  splendid  stores  on  the 
Boston  burnt  district  showed. 

Incidentally  we  hope  Father  McGlynn  will  note,  as 
we  pass,  that  the  $4,500  land  tax  on  the  vacant  site  is 
an  item  of  cost  to  the  owner,  of  the  site  value  which 
he  says  belongs  equally  to  the  New  Zealanders. 

But  what  is  the  strong  cause  which  leads  the  spec- 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  51 

ulator  to  keep  his  site  vacant  under  so  heavy  a  penal- 
ty, and  where  do  the  systems  differ  ? 

Father  McGlynn's  leases  must  run  from  year  to 
year,  or  he  will  not  get  the  increment  of  site  rent  ; 
of  course  giving  preference  to  the  state  tenant  to  con- 
tinue his  tenancy  if  not  overbid.  But  suppose  the 
tenant  has  built  on  the  land  hired,  and  cannot  afford 
to  pay  the  public  rent  ?  Father  McGlynn  does  not 
propose  to  compel  the  successor  to  pay  for  the  im- 
provements on  the  site,  which  would  probably  be  of 
no  use  to  him.  And  since  the  new-comer  must,  as 
Father  McGlynn  says,  pay  the  full  site  rent,  he  must 
pay  all  the  land  is  worth,  and  even  McGlynn  cannot 
compel  him  to  pay  for  a  steam  saw-mill  besides.  And, 
if  the  state  compensates  him  by  a  cheaper  rent  for  as- 
suming the  burden  o£  the  unprofitable  improvements, 
then  the  state  pays  for  them.  But  the  state  cannot 
do  this.  For  if  the  state  must  pay  for  a  steam  saw- 
mill or  a  dry-goods  store  every  time  rent  changes, 
there  would  be  little  left  for  taxes.  And  every  man 
whose  business  was  poor,  or  who  wanted  to  retire, 
would  load  his  worthless  improvements  on  the  state 
treasury.  We  must  assume  that  the  state  tenant 
loses  his  structures  when  the  rent  becomes  too  high 
for  him.  As  a  city  grows  then  the  state  tenants 
whose  business  requires  more  land  will  be  driven  from 
their  sites,  which  will  fall  to  those  who  require  less, 
and  lose  their  structures  with  heavy  loss.  He  who 
buys  a  site  adjusts  it  to  his  personality.  He  cannot 


$2  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

change  his  trade.  Thus  Brown  makes  chairs.  He 
builds  a  building  specially  adapted  to  his  purpose  and 
methods.  Soon  the  current  of  business  approaches, 
and  the  public  rent  becomes  so  heavy  that  longer  to 
make  chairs  there  is  impossible.  Father  McGlynn 
drives  him  out  a  bankrupt,  for  his  structure  becomes 
worthless  debris.  If  Father  McGlynn  tries  long 
leases,  seeking  to  get  as  near  as  he  can  to  private 
title  which  he  condemns,  the  bidder  for  the  lease 
will  deduct  the  improvements  he  expects  to  make 
from  the  rent  he  will  offer,  and  the  evils  will  only  be 
extended  to  longer  intervals.  The  merchant  who  has 
the  longest  purse  will  overbid  his  competitor  for  the 
land  he  occupies,  and  drive  him  out  ruined.  It  is 
easy  to  offer,  or  even  to  pay,  a  very  high  rent  for  a 
year  or  two,  if  he  can  make  hjs  enemy  pay  the  ad- 
vance or  lose  his  buildings.  The  office  of  adjuster  of 
state  rent  would  become  the  richest  plum  of  politics, 
and  woe  to  the  hapless  state  tenant  of  the  unsuccess- 
ful party !  He  would  cry  for  civil-service  reform  in 
vain.  Even  should  the  administration  be  honest, 
every  man,  except  he  who  has  business  requiring 
little  land,  would  shun  a  rapidly  growing  town  like  a 
pestilence  ;  or  all  the  buildings  would  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  very  wealthy,  who  could  afford  the  risks 
and  could  recoup  themselves  for  the  cases  of  forced 
readjustment  by  charging  exorbitant  rents.  The  poor 
would  stand  very  little  chance  in  games  like  this ;  and 
even  the  rich  would  shrink  from  investment  when 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  53 

every  business  interest  centred  in  the  ward  caucus. 
Father  McGlynn  may  be  right  in  saying  that  new 
buildings  would  go  up,  but  they  would  not  afford 
much  employment  for  builders  since  they  would  be 
terribly  poor  ones ;  and  it  is  possible  the  tentmaker 
would  profit  more  than  the  building  trades.  The 
Georgian  system  would  make  the  city  look  as  sorry  as 
the  country. 

Now  the  land-owner  cannot  be  disturbed ;  the 
temptation  of  a  high  price  leads  him  to  sell  when  the 
site  is  needed  for  higher  uses,  and  the  economic  laws 
conserve  all  classes  of  business. 

It  is  just  this  evil  of  forced  readjustment  which  the 
speculator  rectifies  by  holding  land  vacant.  The 
owner  of  the  Equitable  site  sees  that  to-day  only  a 
building  worth  $100,000  will  pay  upon  it,  and  has  also 
the  foresight  to  know  that  in  three  years  the  growth 
of  the  locality  will  require  and  pay  him  better  for  a 
structure  worth  half  a  million.  Thanks  to  his  discern- 
ment, the  want  can  be  met  without  losing  $100,000 
by  tearing  down  the  building  which  improvidence 
would  build  to-day.  Not  one  rood  of  land  will  be 
wantonly  held  vacant,  for  the  speculator  loses  a  heavy 
sum  in  rents  if  it  is.  He  reserves  it,  if  at  all,  under 
the  economic  law  of  self-interest,  which  cheapens  rent 
in  the  long  calculation,  and  manages  the  land  as  the 
public  welfare  requires — by  sacrificing  to-day  to  en- 
able the  city  to  realize,  at  least  expense,  the  splendor 
of  its  future. 


54  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

When  therefore  these  theorists  attribute  industrial 
depressions  to  an  advance  in  rent  caused  by  land 
speculation  we  deny  their  conclusions.  What  may 
be  the  effect  of  speculation  in  buildings,  railroads,  and 
other  land  improvements,  we  need  not  inquire,  since 
Mr.  George  does  not  propose  to  change  their  status. 

We  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  speculation  cheap- 
ens rent ;  nay,  that  it  alleviates  poverty  itself  more 
than  the  Anti-Poverty  Society  can  ever  hope  to  do  on 
its  present  lines  of  action,  by  making  it  possible  for 
the  poorest  of  the  cities  to  secure  cheap  homes  in 
the  very  shanties  on  vacant  land  against  which  Father 
McGlynn  inveighs.  Speculation  in  sites  may  indeed 
be  vicious  in  preventing  men  from  buying  homes,  but 
as  Father  McGlynn  intends  they  shall  never  have  that 
privilege  at  all,  he  at  least  cannot  complain. 

VII. — EFFECT  OF  INVENTIONS  ON  RENT. 

Mr.  George  claims  broadly  that  the  progress  of 
invention  "  constantly"  increases  rent  and  reduces 
wages  and  interest.  His  argument,  however,  seems  to 
relate  only  to  labor-saving  machines  not  increasing  the 
product  of  an  acre,  but  reducing  the  cost  of  raising  it. 
He  forgets  altogether  two  large  classes  of  inventions. 
First,  those  which,  like  subsoil  plowing  or  improved 
fertilization,  increase  the  production  on  a  given  acre. 
These  reduce  rent  as  Mr.  Ricardo  demonstrates.  It 
seems  plain  that  if  the  power  of  production  of  a  single 
square  mile  could  be  so  increased  as  to  supply  all  the 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  55 

wants  of  the  world,  no  exaction  of  rent  would  be  pos- 
sible ;  and  that  each  increase  in  that  power,  therefore, 
reduces  rent  by  tending  to  the  same  end.  Secondly, 
such  inventions  as  increase  the  utility  of  the  product, 
or  substitute  a  cheaper  product  for  one  more  costly, 
or  cheaper  transportation  from  sites  free  or  paying 
low  rental,  have  a  like  effect  in  reducing  rent.  Thus 
the  inventor  calculating  the  strain  of  an  improved 
bridge  and  saving  a  waste  of  iron,  demonstrating  that 
the  rail  having  a  T  section  is  as  useful  and  safe  for 
railroad  use  as  one  having  much  more  steel  in  a  dif- 
ferent section,  or  introducing  the  aniline  dyes,  is  a 
great  destroyer  of  rent.  Mr.  George  points  out  the 
rise  in  rent  caused  by  reduction  in  railroad  charges, 
but  fails  to  note  that  the  rent  of  the  English  acre  is  re- 
duced very  much  more  than  the  rent  of  the  prairie  acre, 
which  the  railroad  enables  to  compete,  is  increased. 

The  instance  of  labor-saving  machines  not  increas- 
ing the  production  per  acre,  on  which  Mr.  George 
rests  his  case,  we  do  not  think  he  has  sufficiently  con- 
sidered. He  claims  that  if  the  margin  of  cultivation, 
or  no-rent  land,  produces  twenty,  and  an  invention 
should  be  made  reducing  by  one  tenth  the  cost  of 
raising  the  product,  the  extra  laborers  discharged 
would  be  compelled  by  their  circumstances  to  con- 
tinue production,  the  demand  for  which  would  be 
stimulated,  and  they  would  be  compelled  to  resort  to 
inferior  or  eighteen  land,  which  would  raise  the  rent 
of  better  soils. 


56  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

How  can  this  be  ?  Mr.  George  assumes  a  commu- 
nity supplied  with  wheat  by  an  area  of  cultivation 
which  includes  just  the  land  better  than  that  produ- 
cing twenty  bushels  per  acre  which  pays  no  rent,  and 
some  of  that  twenty  land.  Assume  that  a  farmer 
owns  a  farm  producing  forty  bushels  per  acre  ;  that 
ten  laborers  are  required  to  till  it,  at  two  dollars  each 
per  day,  and  wheat  is  worth  one  dollar  per  bushel. 
The  men  could  of  course,  (for  we  may  leave  interest 
capital  out  of  this  question),  by  recourse  to  the  land 
producing  twenty  and  costing  no  rent,  just  earn  their 
two  bushels  or  two  dollars  per  day.  The  farmer  gets 
twenty  bushels'  rent  worth  twenty  dollars.  Now  an 
invention  is  made  by  which  nine  men  can  till  the 
twenty  land,  and  get  twenty  bushels  as  easily  as  ten 
did  before.  Each  man  will  get  two  and  two  ninths 
bushels,  and  if  the  price  remains  the  same  will  earn 
two  dollars  and  twenty-two  cents  per  day  instead  of 
two  dollars.  For  if  the  holder  of  the  better  land 
refuses  two  and  two  ninths  bushels'  pay,  the  laborer 
will  go  to  the  rentless  twenty  land  and  secure  it. 
Hence  every  tenth  man  released  by  the  invention,  and 
a  great  many  more,  will  begin  to  till  twenty  land  and 
even  nineteen  land,  for  on  that  they  can  earn  two 
dollars  and  eleven  cents  per  day  while  the  general 
wages  of  laborers  is  only  two  dollars.  But  that  com- 
munity will  not  take  the  extra  wheat  produced.  They 
only  require  that  raised  on  twenty  land  and  better. 
There  will  be  a  glut  of  wheat ;  and  the  farmer  will 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  57 

find  himself  where  the  speculator  was.  His  land  will 
lie  fallow,  and  he  can  get  no  rent  at  all  till  he  reduces 
the  price  of  wheat  to  the  point  where  laborers  have  no 
inducement  to  till  more  land  than  before — namely,  to 
ninety  cents, — at  which  price  the  nine  men  can  each  get 
two  and  two  ninths  bushels  of  wheat,  or  the  previous 
average  wages  of  two  dollars  per  day.  That  is,  the 
farmer  gets  the  same  rent  (twenty)  in  bushels  as 
before,  but  only  eighteen  dollars  in  money,  where 
before  he  got  twenty.  Each  laborer  gets  two  ninths 
of  a  bushel  more,  but  the  same  money. 

But  what  becomes  of  the  tenth  men  discharged  ? 
Will  they  not  compete  and  cheapen  wages  to  the 
farmer,  making  good  to  him  that  two  dollars  lost 
rent  ?  We  think  not.  For  if  they  do  they  will 
cheapen  the  price  of  farm  labor  below  the  average  of 
all  occupations.  Before  that  they  will,  with  some 
friction  of  course,  enter  other  employments. 

But  will  not  the  wages  of  all  labor  thereby  be 
cheapened  ?  In  answering  this  question  we  may 
classify  employments  as  primary  and  secondary; 
the  primary  being  such  as  furnish  the  raw  material 
derived  from  the  land,  and  the  secondary  such  as 
manipulate  the  raw  material,  and  create  from  it  the 
articles  more  or  less  complex  required  for  human 
wants.  For  example,  the  digging  of  iron  ore  from 
the  earth  is  a  primary  employment.  The  ore  less  the 
cost  of  digging,  a  few  particles  of  coal  for  melting 
and  tempering  and  power,  something  consumed  in 


58  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE   NEW  CRUSADE. 

tools,  and  standing  room  for  the  workmen,  are  given 
by  nature.  The  labor  which  transforms  the  cent's 
worth  of  ferruginous  earth  into  the  watch-springs 
having  ten  thousand  times  its  value,  is  of  the  second- 
ary class.  Rent  is  affected  very  little  by  an  increased 
demand  for  the  watch-spring — since  the  same  call  for 
ore  is  made  on  the  earth,  whether  it  be  left  in  the  form 
of  a  railroad  bar  or  exalted  into  the  spring. 

The  consumer  of  wheat  finds  that  the  invention  has 
left  ten  cents  surplus  in  his  pocket  for  each  bushel 
used.  Being  relieved  from  spending  it  for  necessaries, 
he  is  induced  to  elevate  his  standard  of  living — to 
indulge  in  the  luxury  of  a  watch  or  piano, — and  thereby 
to  give  employment  to  these  released  laborers  in  the 
secondary  employments  not  enhancing  the  rent  of 
wheat  land. 

The  tendency  of  the  improvement,  therefore,  seems 
to  be  to  produce  the  phenomena  of  civilization — an 
increase  of  laborers  in  the  secondary  employments, 
and  a  more  complex  or  expensive  use  of  the  products 
of  the  soil ;  an  increased  wages,  counted  in  bushels  of 
wheat  for  the  laborer  ;  the  same  wheat  rent  but  a 
diminished  money  rent  for  the  landlord. 

We  should  perhaps  say  that  the  cheapening  of 
wheat  tends  to  cause  the  consumption  of  more  wheat, 
and  less  corn  and  other  cereals  for  which  wheat  can 
be  used  as  a  substitute.  This  use  would  increase  the 
wheat  rent ;  but  since  it  will  diminish  the  rent  of  the 
lands  producing  the  other  cereals,  it  has  only  the 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  59 

effect  to  equalize  the  loss  of  money  rent  among  land- 
owners generally. 

We  believe  that  the  increase  in  the  rental  of  pro- 
ducing lands  arises  from  the  demand  for  consumption, 
which  increasing  population  or  a  bettered  condition  of 
mankind  creates,  a  cause  which  may  of  course  over- 
bear the  effect  of  invention  in  reducing  rent,  and 
which  would  raise  rent  still  higher  except  for  in- 
vention. And  we  fail  to  see  how  Mr.  George,  in  the 
case  cited,  can  dispose  of  the  extra  two  ninths  of  a 
bushel  which  the  workman  earns,  or  the  two  dollars' 
loss  which  the  landlord  bears. 

VIII. — WILL  THE  SCHEME  CURE  POVERTY? 

The  chief  remaining  question  is,  Can  Father 
McGlynn  exorcise  the  devil  of  poverty  by  this  secular 
device  ?  Will  his  collections  go  to  the  poor  ?  Are 
they  adequate  to  redeem  his  enthusiastic  promise  ? 

We  must  not  deny  to  Father  McGlynn  the  force  of 
precedent  and  authority,  such  as  it  is.  There  is  a 
school  of  theorists  in  Boston  who  advocate  the  levy 
of  all  taxes  from  real  estate,  including  structures— 
a  more  sweeping  confiscation  than  he  proposes.  'We 
fear  he  has  begun  at  the  wrong  end.  If  his  sympa- 
thies had  been  plutocratic  instead  of  ochlocratic,  and 
he  had  joined  this  school,  compromising  on  some 
measure  essentially  like  his,  but  less  drastic  than 
placing  land  title  at  the  will  of  the  caucus,  he  would 
have  gained  cohorts  if  not  success.  It  was  error  to 


60  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

discuss  the  right  to  confiscate,  he  should  simply  have 
confiscated^  calling  it  taxation. 

Yielding  to  the  pressure  of  a  syndicate  of  trustees 
who  had  money  to  lend,  the  Massachusetts  legislature 
of  1 88 1  shifted  the  taxes  before  paid  by  money-lenders 
on  land  mortgages,  to  the  holders  of  other  property, 
chiefly  land-owners.  It  was  done  under  the  catch- 
word of  "  double  taxation."  But  the  lender  was  never 
doubly  taxed  ;  the  only  hardship  was  that  of  the  poor 
land-owner  in  paying  taxes  on  land  of  which  the  chief 
profits  went  to  another  in  the  form  of  interest.  Him 
they  did  not  exempt.  He  pays  more  taxes  than  be- 
fore, and  just  as  much  interest  as  he  would  have  paid 
had  the  old  law  continued.  This  result  any  tyro  in  po- 
litical economy  could  have  forecast.  Thus  the  interest 
charge  on  mortgages,  the  statistics  of  which  are  col- 
lated through  the  State  once  in  three  years,  fell 
941-1000  of  one  per  cent,  only,  under  the  law,  in  the 
six  years  from  1880  to  1886,  while  the  interest  realiz- 
able from  other  sound  securities  not  affected  by  any 
change  of  law  fell  more  than  one  per  cent,  in  the  same 
time  ;  that  on  Boston  and  Albany  sevens,  for  instance, 
falling  one  and  one  fifth.  The  money-lenders  pock- 
eted all  the  subsidy,  in  amount  from  two  to  three 
millions  per  annum.  It  is  an  annuity  extorted  for 
their  benefit  from  other  property,  and  especially  from 
the  now  doubly  taxed  land-holders,  which,  at  four  per 
cent,  is  equivalent  to  the  confiscation  of  sixty  millions 
in  land  by  Mr.  George. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  6 1 

We  cite  the  case  as  an  object-lesson  showing  into 
what  sort  of  pockets  taxes  shifted  to  land  transfer 
themselves,  and  where  Father  McGlynn's  revenues 
will  rest,  notwithstanding  the  same  newspapers  which 
supported  this  confiscation  inuring  to  the  benefit  of  the 
rich,  now  call  him  a  lunatic  and  a  Robin  Hood,  be- 
cause he  would  confiscate  to  restore  the  Golden  Age. 

Mr.  George  does,  indeed,  assume  that  all  taxes  can 
be  paid  from  rent.  In  this  he  errs.  His  revenue 
would  not  pay  local  taxes ;  and  what  estimate  he  re- 
lied on  to  expect  enough  to  extinguish  poverty  we 
cannot  imagine.  We  shall  not  therefore  consider  the 
effect  of  applying  rent  to  national  taxes,  for  the  natural 
application  would  be  to  municipal  ;  and  since  it  would 
involve  a  discussion,  too  protracted,  of  the  tariff.  We 
presume  Mr.  George  would  not  hope  to  relieve  pover- 
ty by  removing  the  tobacco  and  whiskey  excises  ;  and 
the  customs  tax/^r  capita  in  Massachusetts  in  1882 
was  only  $4.08  out  of  $22.64  taxation. 

Great  light  is  thrown  on  the  new  plan  by  a  concrete 
example.  In  what  spot  of  America  will  site  values 
confiscated  yield  the  most  ?  Undoubtedly  Boston.  If 
the  Georgian  scheme  will  not  work  there  it  will  not 
anywhere,  and  there  it  will  make  the  poor  the  richest. 
In  Boston,  owing  largely  to  the  fidelity  of  the  assess- 
ors, who  have  compelled  the  chattel  holders  to  pay 
more  nearly  than  elsewhere  their  share  of  the  taxes, 
land  has  its  highest  value.  Land  in  Philadelphia, 
under  the  blight  of  its  tax  system,  is  worth  less  than 


62  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

in  Western  cities  of  one  sixth  its  size.  In  1882,  taking 
the  actual  real  estate  valuation  of  Philadelphia  and 
what  its  valuation  would  be  if  having  the  same  amount 
per  capita  as  Boston  and  New  York,  we  have  : 

Philadelphia,  actual  valuation $545*608,579 

if  equal  to  New  York,  jter  capita 727,000,000 

"       "       Boston,  per  capita 1,092,000,000 

Thus  the  Bostonian  uses  twice  as  much  land  value 
as  the  Philadelphian,  and  one  half  more  than  the  New 
Yorker.  Here,  then,  the  confiscation  will  amount  to 
something. 

And  to  what  here  ?  The  average  Boston  tax  levy 
was  ten  millions  in  1884  and  1885.  Call  that  the  tax. 
The  value  of  land  in  Boston  in  1886,  distinct  from 
buildings,  was  $215,815,050.  * 

These  are  the  figures  of  the  sworn  assessors  on 
which  Father  McGlynn  must  act.  But  this  is  more 
than  he  could  levy  on.  For  it  includes  many  improve- 
ments, such  as  walls,  sewers,  water  and  gas  piping, 
and  filling,  such  as  made  Commonwealth  Avenue 
from  a  salt  marsh.  It  includes  also  all  vacant  land, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  will  be  forfeited,  and  will  not 
count.  Also  all  the  speculative  value  in  occupied 
sites,  which,  together  with  the  last  item,  we  will  as- 
sume to  be  ten  per  cent.  This  will  disappear.  It 
does  not  seem  possible  that  we  should  find  left  in  site 
values  over  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions.  To 
help  the  scheme  call  it  one  hundred  and  seventy-five. 

What  is  the  full  rental  value  of  sites  ?     Capital,  in 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE   NEW   CRUSADE.  63 

governments,  is  worth  two  and  a  quarter  per  cent.  ;  in 
safe  railroad  bonds,  three  and  a  quarter.  Ground 
rent  is  as  safe  as  any  thing,  but  let  us  again  be  liberal 
and  call  this  four  and  one  half.  Father  McGlynn 
would  get  from  Boston  land-holders  $7,875,000  site 
rent  towards  the  taxes.  Still  liberal,  call  this  eight 
millions.  This  would  leave  a  deficit  of  two  millions, 
which,  assessed  as  heretofore,  adding  for  improve- 
ments classed  as  land,  would  come  as  follows  : 

Present  valuation.  Tax. 
From  buildings  and  other  real  im- 
provements      $321,000,000  $1,250,000 

From  personal  property 193,000,000  750,000 

Father  McGlynn  is  not  so  radical  a  confiscator  as 
the  Boston  theorists  who  would  levy  all  taxes  from 
real  estate,  for  he  would  still  take  $750,000  from 
chattel  holders.  The  change  of  tax  in  raising  the  ten 
million  levy  is  shown  thus  : 

Present  system.       Georgian  system. 

Tax  from  real-estate  owners $7,284,000.  $9,250,000. 

personal-property  owners,     2,716,000.  750,000. 

The  apparent  effect  of  the  scheme  will  be  to  relieve 
personal-property  holders  of  taxes  to  the  amount  of 
two  millions  and  shift  them  to  land-holders. 

But  what  poor  will  be  relieved  by  this  extra  collec- 
tion of  two  millions  from  land  sites  ?  Obviously  those 
whose  taxes  are  paid  by  it.  Poll-tax  payers  will  get 
nothing  but  a  moderate  increase  in  their  rent  bill. 
Father  McGlynn's  bounty  will  be  thus  divided  : 


64  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

Property  now  taxed.  Taxes  saved. 

To  money-lenders $45,000,000.  $466,000. 

1   bank  depositors 17,200,000.  178,000. 

"   state  and  municipal  bond-holders       36,000,000.  373,000. 

"   bank  stockholders 15,000,000.  156,000. 

"   holders  of  foreign   stocks  (chiefly 

railroad) 34,800,000.  361,000. 

!<  other  chattel  holders  (chiefly  mer- 
chants)       45,000,000.  466,000. 

193,000,000.         2,000,000. 

The  wretched  money-lender  and  railroad  speculator 
in  his  desolate  home  in  the  purlieus  of  the  North  End 
will  indeed  rise  up  and  bless  Father  McGlynn,  and 
there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  his  scheme  if 
thoroughly  understood  would  sweep  a  humanitarian 
legislature  like  that  of  1881  as  the  tornado  sweeps 
the  pines. 

To  individualize : — Rogers  has  a  tenement  at  the 
North  End  worth  $20,000,  of  which  the  site  value  is 
$10,000,  consisting  of  $9,000  present  actual  value  and 
$1,000  speculative  value  due  to  prospective  rise,  and 
the  structure  value  is  $10,000.  Rents  and  the  annual 
rise  in  value  of  the  site  net  to  Rogers  four  and  one 
half  per  cent,  above  taxes.  The  comparative  schemes 
are  shown  thus : 

Present  Present  Rents  under     Georgian 

Value.        rents.  tax.  George.             tax. 

Site :  use   value         $9,000.     $531.  $126.  $531.         $531. 

"  speculative  value    1,000.  14.  (disappears) 

Building                     10,000.       590.  140.  590.            28. 

20,000.    1,121.        280.          1,121.          559. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW   CRUSADE.  65 

The  $28  is  the  tax  still  necessary  to  raise  the  two 
million  deficit.  Rogers  before  the  change  realizes 
$1,121  less  $266,  or  $855  net,  rent  from  tenants ;  and 
$59  less  $14,  or  $45,  from  the  annual  rise  in  value  of 
his  premises  ;  $900  in  all,  which  is  four  and  one  half 
percent,  on  $20,000.  Afterwards  Rogers'  net  income 
is  reduced  from  $900  to  $562,  a  confiscation  of  $338. 

We  here  reach  an  important  question.  Notice  that 
the  tax  on  Rogers'  building  fell  from  $140  to  $28,  or 
$112,  leaving  him,  if  we  count  the  structure  only, 
$562  income  from  that  against  $450  before,  or  one 
and  one  eighth  per  cent,  more  revenue.  This  $112  is 
Rogers'  rebate  on  account  of  his  structure  from  the 
great  confiscation  tax  fund.  Will  he  not  concede 
part  of  this  to  tenants  by  reducing  rent  ?  Plainly  not  ; 
for  all  investments  in  personal  property  gain  a  like 
relief  from  taxes,  and  investors  will  not  sacrifice  this 
advantage  by  putting  their  capital  into  structures  at 
lower  rates.  Rogers  can  therefore  exact  that  advan- 
tage in  rent  since  tenants  cannot  get  other  houses  built 
for  better  terms.  Some  reduction  of  structure  rent 
might  indeed  accrue  from  the  competition  of  capital 
flowing  from  the  plethora  hitherto  put  in  tax-dodging 
investments  now  free  to  enter  structures  with  the 
same  exemption.  But  as  the  comparison  we  make  is 
not  between  Mr.  George's  scheme  and  the  unnecessary 
defects  of  the  present  plan,  it  is  not  fair  to  credit  him 
with  the  reduction  from  this  source. 

But  will  the  chattel  holder  give  his  rebate  to  the 


66  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE   NEW  CRUSADE. 

poor  ?  Whence  come  the  local  taxes  ?  From  capi- 
talists' accumulation.  Where  will  they  be  if  the  state 
does  not  take  them,  using  site  rent  instead  ?  In  cap- 
italists' accumulation.  As  if  determined  that  no  poor 
man  shall  receive  the  bounty,  Father  McGlynn  divides 
it  to  the  tax  list,  where  no  poor  man's  name  stands 
except  for  a  poll  tax.  He  creates  nothing.  He  redis- 
tributes. He  gives  the  present  fortune  of  the  land 
capitalist  to  his  favorite,  the  chattel  and  structure  cap- 
italist, though  the  latter  is  under  no  more  compulsion 
to  divide  with  the  poor  than  the  former.  He  will 
mulct  everybody  hereafter,  rich  or  poor,  in  proportion 
as  they  use  land,  to  subsidize  the  same  favorite.  The 
burden  is  on  him  then,  since  he  says  he  helps  the 
poor,  to  show  how  they  get  the  aid.  Why  should 
his  favorite  divide  his  subsidy  to  them  any  more  than 
the  Massachusetts  mortgagee  did  his  ? 

Dives  boards  at  the  Vendome  Hotel.  He  owns 
one  million  dollars'  worth  of  Mexican  Central  bonds 
on  which  he  pays  to-day  $14,000  taxes.  Father  Mc- 
Glynn comes  and  reduces  his  tax  to  $2,800  ;  donates 
to  Dives  $11,200  per  annum.  He  has  spoiled  the 
land-owner  to  enrich  the  bond-holder.  What  part  of 
this  gift  will  filter  through  Dives'  hands  to  the  poor 
or  the  workman,  and  what  workman  or  what  poor 
will  get  it  ? 

Let  us  try  to  find  some  principles  on  which  the  di- 
vision is  made  between  labor  and  interest  capital  in  pro- 
duction, adopting  Mr.  George's  opinions  where  we  can. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  67 

When  labor  and  capital  coact  to  produce  each  cre- 
ates an  exact  percentage  of  the  product.  The  di- 
vision is  not  at  all  on  this  line,  but  is  fixed  by  demand 
and  supply.  Assume  that  ten  workmen,  on  a  given 
free  site,  can  produce  wheat  worth  ten  dollars  each 
day  without  capital.  Capitalist  A  comes  with  ten 
units  of  capital,  using  which  the  workmen  can  produce 
twenty  dollars.  Since  the  workmen  can  get  ten  dol- 
lars without  A,  but  capital  can  get  nothing  without 
them,  he  must  bid  them  some  advantage  to  coact 
with  him.  Call  this  advantage  two  dollars  ;  the  di- 
vision will  be  :  wages,  twelve  dollars ;  interest,  eight 
dollars.  But  now  comes  B  with  fresh  capital,  but 
with  no  accession  of  laborers.  B's  ten  units  being 
added  to  A's,  and  both  used  by  the  workmen,  the  prod- 
uct will  be  increased,  though  not  so  much  as  by  the 
first  instalment  of  capital.  Call  the  increase  eight 
dollars,  and  the  product  twenty-eight  dollars.  Since 
the  workmen  can  get  twelve  dollars  without  B,  but  he 
nothing  without  them,  he  must  concede  two  dollars 
more,  and  the  division  is  :  workmen,  fourteen  dollars ; 
A,  seven  dollars  ;  B,  seven  dollars.  But  if,  instead  of 
more  capital,  ten  more  workmen  had  come,  whose  pro- 
duction of  ten  dollars  would  be  increased  to  fourteen 
dollars  by  uniting  with  the  others  in  using  A's  capital, 
the  joint  production  of  all  being  thirty-four  dollars, 
A,  being  free  to  contract  with  either  set  of  workmen, 
would  have  the  advantage,  and  could  reduce  the  pay 
of  each  set  to  eleven  dollars,  taking  twelve  dollars  in- 


68  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE, 

stead  of  eight  or  seven  dollars  himself.  Combination 
would  vary  this  decidedly,  but  since  it  may  be  met  by 
counter  combination  we  need  not  consider  it.  We 
cite  this  to  illustrate  that  the  division  between  wages 
and  capital  is  determined  by  the  relative  preponder- 
ance in  the  supply  of  each,  wages  never  falling  so  low 
as  to  be  compelled  to  accept  only  what  labor  could 
get  without  capital.  Wages  and  interest  could,  of 
course,  both  be  increased  by  opening  up  a  better  field 
of  production,  or  raising  the  price  of  the  product.  But 
they  would  still  divide  on  a  ratio  between  capital  and 
labor,  determined  by  demand  and  supply  of  each.  A 
will  give  a  larger  percentage  to  his  men  only  as  new 
capital  comes  in  to  make  him,  or  as  the  competing 
men  diminish  in  number. 

Turn  now  to  Mr.  George's  scheme.  He  proposes 
to  reduce  no  man's  rent.  No  poor  man  will  then  get 
help  that  way.  He  proposes  to  collect  the  same  rent 
as  before  and  give  it  to  the  local  taxpayers.  Who  are 
they  ?  The  capitalists.  He  says  of  production  that  it 
equals  rent,  wages,  and  interest,  added  together,  and 
compares  the  partnership  to  that  of  Tom  furnishing 
the  land,  Dick  doing  the  work,  and  Harry  supplying 
the  money.  He  proposes  that  this  partnership  shall 
continue  precisely  as  before,  the  produce  being  divided 
to  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry,  as  usual ;  but  then,  to  re- 
lieve the  poor,  he  calls  the  state  in  to  take  Tom's  share 
and  give  it  to  Harry,  just  as  the  Massachusetts  legis- 
lature of  1881  cried  over  Dick  and  " tipped"  Harry. 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  69 

Harry  will,  of  course,  continue  as  heretofore  to  hire 
the  land,  either  of  Tom  or  the  state,  and  employ  Dick. 
No  share  is  proposed  for  Dick  on  account  of  the  land. 
Dick  can  get  no  increase  from  Harry  in  his  share  of 
the  product,  for  not  one  groat  is  added  to  the  interest 
capital  used  for  production,  which  can  come  in  to  bid 
an  advantage  to  Dick  for  his  services.  As  fast  as 
Tom  got  any  money  for  rent  before,  he  made  interest 
capital  of  it,  and  put  it  in  the  way  of  production.  On 
general  principles  then  labor  will  not  gain  a  farthing 
from  the  Georgian  scheme,  for  it  brings  no  new  inter- 
est capital  to  bid  up  wages  ;  no  new  field  of  produc- 
tion ;  no  addition  to  the  price  of  the  product ;  no  di- 
minution in  the  number  competing  for  employment. 
To-day  Tom  and  Harry  hold  the  stock  of  the  produc- 
tive company,  and  Dick  works  for  the  corporation. 
Under  Father  McGlynn  Harry  will  hold  all  the  stock, 
happy  in  the  downfall  of  Tom,  and  hoping  he  may  be 
driven  to  compete  with  Dick  and  reduce  his  wages 
still  lower  than  before. 

The  poor  man  who  seeks  relief  from  the  oppression 
of  capital  finds  it  in  the  free  sites.  And  thus  the 
march  of  population  is  westward,  whither  the  pioneer 
goes  to  better  his  fortune  ;  the  hardships  of  the  fron- 
tier are  overcome  by  the  hope  that  some  day  the  site 
he  selects  shall  have  value  for  himself  and  his  chil- 
dren. He,  and  others  like  him,  develop  and  create 
that  value.  Is  it  wise  or  honest  to  deter  him  from  his 
enterprise  by  notice  that  whatever  value  it  may  have 


70  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW   CRUSADE. 

shall  be  confiscated  and  divided  indirectly  to  his  more 
fortunate  neighbor,  rich  in  bonds,  mortgages,  and 
other  chattels  ? 

The  amount  involved  in  site  rent  is  wofully  inade- 
quate to  cure  the  ills  of  poverty  if  all  applied.  In 
rich  Boston  it  will  hardly  reach  twelve  dollars  per  an- 
num per  head,  above  what  the  State  now  takes,  and  at 
the  most  will  not  in  Massachusetts  pay  half  the  1882  tax 
of  twenty-two  dollars  and  sixty-four  cents  per  capita. 
Whom  would  it  help  in  the  hill  towns,  where  farms 
are  often  sold  for  the  cost  of  the  stone  walls  ? 

These  economists  seem  to  base  their  ideas  upon  a 
tenantry  with  rich  landlords.  They  forget  that  many 
men  own  their  homes,  on  which,  as  they  are  not  held 
for  business  purposes,  the  new  rent  would  be  a  new 
tax  to  be  borne  from  their  pockets.  It  is  poor  com- 
fort for  them  to  be  told  that  a  tenant  can  pay  only  in 
tax  what  he  would  otherwise  pay  in  rent,  as  a  plea  for 
a  system  under  which  the  home  of  the  workman 
would  bear  the  same  tax  as  the  palace  of  the  aristocrat, 
the  banking-house  of  the  Barings  the  same  public  con- 
tribution as  the  shop  of  the  neighboring  peanut- 
vender. 

If  Mr.  George  desires  to  alleviate  poverty  by  tax 
reform  a  wide  field  is  open.  For  the  tax  laws  are 
framed  with  great  ingenuity  to  lay  an  apparent  bur- 
den on  the  rich  which  really  falls  in  unjust  proportion 
on  the  poor. 

In  any  old  state  the  chattel  property  largely  exceeds 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  71 

the  real.  A  very  great  proportion  of  it  escapes.  The 
laws  of  many  states  exempt  chattels,  English  fashion, 
or  wink  at  chattel-tax  dodging,  or  give  privileged  in- 
vestments, like  mortgages  and  specially  exempted 
bonds.  A  single  man  lately  in  Boston,  without  fault 
of  the  assessors,  but  through  fault  of  the  laws,  paying 
on  only  one  fifteenth  the  value  of  his  estate,  escaped 
the  fair  levy  of  nearly  enough  to  meet  the  average  tax 
burden  upon  ten  thousand  persons. 

The  chief  evil  of  this  is  not  the  obvious  one,  that 
the  poor  are  taxed  to  make  up  the  deficit,  but  it  is 
that  an  avenue  of  escape  is  open. 

For  when  sufficiently  open  the  general  rule  is  that 
taxes  fall  on  the  consumer  only,  with  certain  excep- 
tions, and  not  at  all  on  wealth  as  wealth.  Because 
when  capital  has  a  door  opened  by  favor,  through 
which  it  can  freely  escape  taxation,  all  that  stays  under 
exacts  the  tax,  or  at  least  a  great  part  of  it,  from  the 
consumer  for  whose  benefit  it  remains. 

When  chattels  are  free,  the  taxes  fall  apparently  on 
real  estate.  It  is  perhaps  too  bold  to  venture  an 
opinion  as  to  the  incidence  of  the  tax  on  real  estate — 
or  the  rental  value  of  it, — a  question  which  so  able  a 
statesman  as  Mr.  Goschen  confesses  his  inability  to 
solve, — but  we  cannot  help  believing  that  the  part 
arising  from  site  value  is,  for  reasons  stated  (p.  48), 
paid  by  the  landlord,  but  the  part  arising  from  struc- 
tures and  other  improvement  value  is  paid  by  the 
tenant ;  and  that,  however  the  mutations  of  demand 


?2  PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE. 

and  supply  and  other  circumstances  may  vary  this  pro- 
portion, the  division  will  constantly  tend  to  that  line. 

For  the  tenant  of  a  building  cannot  avoid  a  higher 
rent  charge  except  as  other  capital  is  tempted  into 
buildings  to  compete  for  his  rent.  And  if  that  capital 
is,  or,  at  the  will  of  its  owner,  may  be,  exempt,  it  will 
not  flow  into  structures  without  charging  enough  extra 
in  rent  to  meet  the  tax  it  was  before  free  from. 
Hence  the  tenant  has  no  relief,  but  when  chattels 
are  free  he  must  pay  the  landlord's  tax. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  all  property  is  taxed  the  land- 
lord cannot  exact  his  tax  from  his  tenant  by  increased 
rent  charge,  for  taxed  chattel  capital  would  flow  into 
houses  to  gain  the  same  exemption. 

For  like  reasons  an  excise  on  one  commodity  and 
not  on  others  falls  entirely  on  the  consumer,  unless 
exceptional  circumstances  prevent. 

Since,  then,  site  value  is  far  less  than  improvement 
value,  the  landlord  pays  much  less  of  the  tax  than  the 
tenant ;  and  since  rent  takes  a  far  greater  proportion 
of  the  poor  man's  income  than  of  the  rich  man's,  the 
taxes  which  are  apparently  taken  from  property  but 
do  not  come  from  it,  are  out  of  all  fair  proportion 
paid  unconsciously  by  the  poor. 

The  English  law  is  worse  than  ours  ;  for  it  exacts 
no  tax  on  speculative  value,  since  that  pays  no  rent. 

Of  course  there  are  exceptions  to  the  law  we  state, 
as  site  value  is,  and  capital  under  such  foreign  com- 
petition that  it  cannot  shift  its  tax  completely,  which 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND — THE  NEW  CRUSADE.  73 

reacts  by  competition  on  the  rest.  But  space  only 
permits  us  the  statement  of  the  general  rule. 

And,  speaking  generally,  if  taxes  are  to  fall  upon 
wealth,  per  se,  they  must  be  made  to  press  like  an 
atmosphere  on  all  capital  alike,  with  only  the  ex- 
emptions, if  any,  into  which  little  capital  will  flow.  If 
tax  burdens  are  laid  upon  men  in  proportion  to  their 
abilities,  according  to  the  ancient  Puritan  maxim  long 
antedating  Adam  Smith,  wealth  being  taken  as  the 
measure,  and  are  not  laid  on  men's  faculties  and 
powers  to  labor,  the  share  of  the  poor  man  in  the 
product  of  his  labor  will  not  be  reduced  by  taxation, 
except  on  what  he  stores  of  it  as  capital ;  nor  when 
he  exchanges  his  share  of  the  product  for  rent  will  he 
bear  any  important  share  of  the  tax  of  his  landlord. 
Men  will  be  taxed  not  according  to  what  they  con- 
sume, but  what  they  have. 

If  Father  McGlynn  and  Mr.  George,  instead  of 
helping  the  tax  dodger  at  the  expense  of  the  land- 
owner, will  devote  their  great  abilities  and  fervent 
spirit  to  bring  him  to  account,  and  to  rectify  all  the 
abuses  in  taxation  established  through  the  selfish  in- 
terests of  those  who  profit  by  them,  they  will  render 
a  genuine  service  to  the  poor. 

If  these  Knights  of  the  New  Crusade  cannot  usher 
in  the  full  glory  of  the  Golden  Age,  let  them  com- 
mand a  few  rays  which,  like  the  impartial  sun,  shall 
flash  as  warmly  into  the  gloom  of  the  tenement-house 
as  through  the  shutters  of  the  millionaire. 


CORRECTION. 


The  author  has  discovered  an  error  in  the  statement  (p.  62)  of  the  value  of 
land  in  Boston  distinct  from  buildings  at  $215,815,050  in  1886. 

These  are  the  figures  as  stated  in  the  official  report  of  "Aggregates  of 
Polls,  Property,  Taxes,  Etc.,"  published  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Common- 
wealth on  which  the  author  relied.  He  was  aware  that  Mr.  Thomas  Hills, 
Principal  Assessor,  whose  judgment  is  often  as  accurate  as  the  returns,  had  long 
estimated  land  as  having  sixty  per  cent,  of  the  total  real  value,  which  would 
give  310  millions.  But  it  seemed  necessary  to  accept  the  official  figures  in 
spite  of  theories. 

An  examination  of  the  original  records  of  the  assessors  shows,  however,  the 
value  of  Boston  land  distinguished  from  buildings  to  be  $301,688,225,  and  the 
figures  given  by  the  author  were  the  valuation  of  buildings,  not  land.  It  was 
an  error  in  the  usually  accurate  secretary's  office,  easy  to  make,  since  1886  was 
the  first  year  of  such  returns  and  no  comparisons  would  make  the  error  appear. 
It  arose  from  placing  each  of  the  two  valuations  in  the  column  of  the  other. 

The  change  is  not  enough  to  make  any  essential  difference  with  the  argu- 
ment. It  will  be  noted  that  the  amount  of  land  values  stated  by  the  author 
indicated  a  rental  value  so  surprisingly  inadequate  to  meet  the  taxes  that  he 
"  threw  in  "  large  amounts  to  aid  the  scheme  (v.  pp.  62  and  63).  He  added 
fifty  millions  to  the  estimate,  and  again  $125,000  revenue  to  even  up  eight 
millions,  and  conceded  four  and  a  half  per  cent,  for  the  income  of  untaxed 
land  when  untaxed  governments  pay  only  two  and  a  quarter. 

But  the  new  figures  force  a  closer  examination  than  seemed  necessary  when 
sailing  such  a  long  way  within  the  apparent  headlands  of  the  argument. 

State  the  land  value  at  $301,688,225.  From  this  the  following  deductions 
must  be  made,  for  reasons  stated  in  the  essay,  to  reach  the  revenue-paying 
basis  of  the  Georgian  scheme,  most  of  which  can  only  be  the  subject  of  estimate. 

First.  Vacant  land,  which  would  be  forfeited  and  pay  no  revenue.  The 
value  of  this,  including  marsh  and  flats,  is  $41,458,915,  which  deducted  leaves 
$260,229,220. 

Second.  Much  land  actually  vacant  is  not  so  classified.  Great  numbers 
of  lots  are  built  upon,  each  having  an  excess  of  land  held  by  the  owner  for 
rise  in  value.  This  he  will  surrender  when  he  finds  he  can  never  profit  by  a 
rise  and  must  pay  full  rent  for  it  to  the  public.  The  average  amount  of  land 
assessed  with  each  of  54,450  buildings  is  4.225  square  feet  at  $1.13  per  foot. 
This  includes  all  buildings  in  blocks,  and  even  little  shops  and  stables.  It  is 
not  credible  that  more  than  an  average  of  3,000  feet  would  remain  for  taxation, 
since  2,500  feet  is  a  large  building  lot.  Assume  then  that  1,225  feet  would  be 
given  up  in  each  case,  and,  to  be  safe,  value  this  at  only  forty  cents,  about  one 
third  the  average.  The  deduction  will  figure  $27,000,000,  leaving  $233, 000,000. 

Third.  All  present  speculative  value  would  at  once  disappear.  The 
average  owner,  apprised  that  he  could  never  profit  by  any  rise  in  price,  would 
probably  value  his  site  at  ten  per  cent  less.  Placing  the  reduction  at  only 
seven  per  cent  it  would  be  sixteen  millions,  leaving  $217,000,000. 

Fourth.  The  land  improvements  fitting  the  soil  for  buildings  are  not  to  be 
taxed  by  the  Georgian  system  and  must  be  deducted.  There  are  no  data  to 
show  the  cost  of  piling,  filling,  supporting  walls,  grading,  wharf  construction, 
etc.  We  know  that  the  State  has  paid  $3,358,754  in  partly  fitting  228  acres 
of  Back  Bay  and  South  Boston  flats  for  use.  If  the  improvements  in  the 
5,284  acres  classified  as  built  upon  in  Boston  cost  no  more  than  this,  a  further 
deduction  of  seventy-eight  millions  accrues.  Call  this  only  forty-two  millions 
and  the  basis  of  value  from  which  Father  McGlynn  could  collect  rentals  is 
reduced  to  $175,000,000,  and,  this  being  the  amount  figured  on  in  the  text,  no 
further  comment  is  necessary  to  sustain  the  argument. 


QUESTIONS    0\ 

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